


Hearts March To The Same Beat

by purpledaisy



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Childhood Friends, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-04-27 01:25:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5028319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purpledaisy/pseuds/purpledaisy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A modern day superhero AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hearts March To The Same Beat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> This is a pinch hit for the exchange and I loved your prompts. I went with your superpower one with my own spin on it since my superhero knowledge is a bit limited. Hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Title: "You and Me" - You + Me
> 
>  
> 
>   
>  [(X)](http://daisyharry.tumblr.com/post/134610908376/title-hearts-march-to-the-same-beat-purpledaisy)  
> 

The sun isn’t even up fully—barely in the process, really. There's a cast of muted oranges and lighter pinks from the sky, reflecting off a few of the windows panes along the street but there are still shadows of dawn casting around, lingering corners of darkness. It’s quiet in the way it always is at four in the morning with the world seemingly untouched for at least a little while longer.

Harry sits on the curb while he waits, the cold dew from the grass tickling the bottoms of his hands where they rest. Whatever had been lingering in his bloodstream over night has given way to a pounding headache and a dry mouth. The air is chilly, October pressing in faster now, turning his ears a crisp cold at the tips. He had called the cab while he was still inside, spoke lowly in the stairwell while he recited the address he knows by heart. His brown Chelsea boots thumped and echoed against the metal stairs until he was out on the overgrown grass bordering the walkway to the front of the flat. The flat they had carefully picked out four years ago, the one they had made their own.

Now, he’s waiting for the big yellow car that’s supposed to take him away—just like he asked, just like he said he wanted. His bag is sat next to him, worn brown leather--overused with weekend trips and getaways but nothing like this. Nothing so hastily decided that he only managed to grab the first few things he saw, as his vision blurred with the tears he wasn’t supposed to have. This time it isn’t only a weekend, this time he isn’t looking back.

Just like he asked, just like he said he wanted.

*~

The first time Harry Styles knew he was different, he hadn't even started school.

He and Gemma were playing in the sandbox out in the yard on a sticky sweet summer day. Harry had sand up to his elbows and some in his hair but he was desperately trying to help his sister build her castle. Despite his best efforts, though, Gemma kept telling him he was ruining it--like always. He proved her right a moment later when she started pointing at his arm and yelling, startling him enough that he dropped his shovel on top of the castle and squashed it. 

Their mum came running out of the house in a panic as Harry covered his ears in protest of all the nose his sister was making. His mum's hands fluttered between the two of them as she tried to figure out what was happening. She pressed Harry's face to her chest, her blue sundress smelling like the apple pie she had been making inside.

“He’s got that mark, mum,” Gemma said when she calmed down slightly, voice still shaking. She had always been the confident one, the one who chose what games they were going to play or what stuffed animals Harry could hold. But just then, Harry heard the tremor in her voice--the thing that sounded a lot like fear.

Anne made him stand up in front of her as she inspected the inside of his arm where his sister had been pointing. Sure enough, in stark contrast to this pale skin was a purple star—almost like he’d drawn it on with his Crayola markers. He hadn’t, though, because their dad told them markers were for paper not walls or clothes and definitely not skin. (“How about my hairs?” Gemma had asked straight after, the tight smile from their dad told them enough.)

“Sweetheart, did you draw on your arm?” His mom looked at him with the wide eyes that matched his own.

He shook his head quickly, “Promise I didn’t.” His mum nodded once with a quivering lip before she told them they had to stop building their castle and go inside to change out of their swimsuits. Harry swore he'd told the truth but he felt like it would have been better to lie, to say he'd drawn it himself.

The next three hours were spent with their mum and dad huddled close together while Gemma let Harry pick what VHS they were going to watch, and he got to sit in the corner spot of the couch. Harry _never_ got to make such important decisions when it was just the two of them and he could barely enjoy the movie after that--wondering what was wrong with him. He got a nervous fluttering sensation in his stomach when his dad’s whispers turned to yelling before he stormed out of the house. Their mum looked at them with a watery smile when she grabbed the phone and disappeared into the kitchen. 

“Do you have one?” Harry asked his sister quietly, “A mark?”

She pushed her lips together and shook her head, “No. Mum just told me stories when I was little about magic marks—I’ve never seen one in real life.”

That night, after he was tucked under his Superman bedspread, his mum threw around words like, _special_ , _unique_ , and _lucky._ He wanted to believe her, in the way he always did, but something about her voice, the way it sounded like she was holding her breath, made his stomach hurt. His childhood was full of the kinds of memories that ebbed and flowed, blurred into each other but he never forgot that day in August. From the way he traced the star on his arm in the dark of his bedroom, down to the unfinished apple pie on the kitchen counter, the one his mum would throw away the next day.

He was seven by the time the whispers around town started up in earnest.

_“He’s just kind of strange, isn’t he? Wicked fast, though.”_

_“Still, he's oddly quiet. Maybe a disorder?”_

Harry knew he was fast, always had been. That’s what his mum said the star meant—why he was special--he could run faster than anyone else. He didn't know if he was faster than _anyone_ else but he did know that ever since the star showed up he could beat Gemma in races, that when he ran the rest of the world blurred around him.

In Primary, he started playing with the other kids on the playground but running was no longer just a fun race against his sister. When he ran on the playground, chased the other kids, the palms of his hands would heat up—almost start to feel like they were burning. And when he stopped chasing, stood still, they would take a few moments to cool off completely. The first time he noticed, he pressed his bare hands to his cheeks and yelped at his own touch, the warmth that shouldn’t have been there while he was outside in December.

He told his mum about it when they were baking that same afternoon, the way his hands felt. “That happens sometimes," she'd said easily.

“How do you know?” Harry asked, the one question he always asked. He wanted to know, needed to know, how she could be so sure.

She put the tray of cookies in the oven and wiped her hands on a dish towel, leaning back against the counter. “A long time ago, so long grandma wasn’t even around, everyone was born with a mark. Stars and hearts and random scribbles—everyone had a power. They could run fast or fly or be invisible.”

“Not anymore, though?” Harry knew he was the only one in his family with a purple star.

“Not anymore, though,” she confirmed. “Sometimes, the powers showed up in other generations, at the bottom of family trees. Not exactly like they were back in the old days, not as strong. But still just as special. Your star is special because you’re the only one who gets it. Dad and I don’t have it, Gems never will, your kids might not even. Just you, darling.”

Harry smiled uneasily, he knew what she was trying to do--tell him he was special instead of a freak. He asked his mum if other people would know when his hands got hot, if they would know his secret if he touched them, if he could tell them about it. She shook her head, almost sadly -- told him most people wouldn’t understand why it made him special. He was seven but he heard the unspoken words there—they’d think he was weird, scary, dangerous.

At first he thought it was fun to never get caught in the games they played on the playground. Games like tag where he could run so fast he would leave the other kids in the dust. As it turned out, no one else found it fun to chase the uncatchable kid. Sometimes the other boys wouldn’t even invite him to play, and the rare times they felt guilty and asked him to join it was like he wasn’t there at all—the kid who was “it” never even tried to come close to Harry Styles.

He hated when he had to be “it” the very most, though. He knew he couldn’t catch up to kids on purpose or they wouldn’t let him play--but he knew he couldn’t touch them either. He couldn’t reach his hand out to tag them, in fear of hurting them—or, worse, getting hurt himself if they found out his secret.

“Styles, come on,” one of the bigger boys, Matthew, would always yell at break time. “Don’t be such a pansy.”

Harry never knew how to explain that he couldn’t help it. Never knew how to say he always wore long sleeves so the other kids wouldn’t see his purple star, or how to explain his palms burned so badly they hurt whenever he played. 

By the end of the year, he knew to slow down on purpose so the other boys could catch him, so he could play too. He told himself he was having fun even when getting tagged felt more like a hit to his shoulder blades than a touch. Like someone snatching wings off of his back with an angry grip that scratched against his skin. Sometimes, though, he thought getting caught might be worse than just being alone--not being invited to play at all.

*~

Harry holds his bag a little tighter as he enters Heathrow, crowds of other early morning travelers twisting around him as they make their way towards security and further to their gates. He keeps his head down as he pulls up his boarding pass on his phone, scared people will be able to see what he's done just by looking at him. He takes a deep breath right before the line for security, reminds himself, yet again, this is what he wants.

He matches his breathing to the metal detector's beep of approval for each person, tries to slow his fluttering heart. When it's his turn to walk through the machine, he offers a small smile to the officer standing there as he sets his bag on the conveyor belt and goes to walk through the metal arch. He’s startled by the loud, angry buzz he gets as he goes through and he steps back towards the other side.

“It’s your rings, love,” the woman says, with a hint of a smile, looking at his hands. “If you’ve got too many at once the machine gets finicky.”

He looks down at his fingers for the first time and remembers the rings he takes off for bed, the ones he didn’t get a chance to take off last night—considering he never made it to a bed, his or otherwise. “Sorry,” he says, repeats it again to the older man behind him who just nods in understanding. He pulls them off one at time, the silver ones with the turquoise, the bands with gems inside, the one that probably set off the alarm in the first place, his big onyx ring with tiny stones on the edges—the one he hasn’t taken off in years, not even for bed. It seems stuck on his finger and he almost laughs, would have if he didn’t feel like even _that_ might break him in half. “This one’s a bit stuck,” he says to the woman, his hands starting to sweat as he twists the ring around in a circle.

 “S’alright.” She reaches behind her for a bottle of something Harry instantly recognizes. His cheeks go pink as she takes off the cap. “That’s what this is for.” He offers her his hand, as the man behind him stifles a laugh into a cough. She pours the lubricant over his finger, twists the ring until it slides right off, leaving only the tattooed lines underneath. “Why you gotta this wear one, babe?” She laughs as she holds it up slightly, “You already got it tatted underneath.”

He shrugs because he doesn’t have an answer—never has. She shrugs back, a full smile on her lips now. He goes to walk through the machine again but pauses when she asks, "Who is ZJM anyway? She give you this ring?"

Harry doesn't have to glance over to know she's looking on the inside of the band but he does anyway. He bites the inside of his cheek, thumb touching the underside of his ring finger as he drops his gaze. “He’s just--he's nobody.”

If she notices the pronoun change, she doesn’t say--just sets the ring down in the tray with a soft clink against the others. This time when he walks through the machine, he’s met with nothing but silence.

*~

On the first day of Year 4 there was one new kid Harry didn’t recognize right away--Zayn Malik, according to their introductions. Zayn Malik, a year older, with dark hair buzzed short and glasses with black frames. He was wearing a shirt that had the Batman logo on it and Harry swallowed instead of telling him he liked it.

Zayn didn’t really make eye contact with anyone at first—he was quiet like Harry. But he was also the only one who didn’t make fun of Harry when he stared at his hands in gym class or refused to touch other kids even for a high-five. What he liked the most about Zayn was when he would bring his sketchbook to the playground at break. He'd sit on the bottom of the big yellow slide and draw leaving Harry to watch in awe from across the schoolyard. Zayn didn't really seem to care about fitting in or making friends and it almost made Harry jealous--he marched to the beat of his own drum as Harry's mum would say.

Harry had long since stopped trying to play tag, put off after being ridiculed for being too good at it and then, not good enough. He brought books to read when they went outside instead of playing on the play structure or in the big field. He'd always liked reading--loved to read about superheroes and wizards, magic and superpowers--but now it had the added bonus of keeping him out of everyone's way.

He knew there was something about him that was magic, or a version of magic, but whether it was a Superman kind or a Harry Potter kind, he didn’t know. His mum never explained it to him fully when he asked--sometimes she said she didn’t know, other times she just hummed and told him he was special again. "The other kids think I’m a sick joke, mum,” he would say. There was always a sense of brokenness to her smile when he said things like that until she covered it with a smile and ruffle his hair instead, “If they knew you at all they wouldn’t say that.” Most of the time, Harry felt like there was no one else who understood him and he'd much rather get lost in the fantasy worlds bound between covers instead. Worlds where no one could poke fun at him or tell him it was too hot to wear long sleeves--whisper that he was a freak when they _knew_ he was listening.

It was a Thursday in May when Harry brought the newest Harry Potter, the fourth, to school. They were at break and Harry was sitting against the brick wall, huddled into himself as he read, eyes barely skimming the words just to get to the next page to find out what was going to happen. He looked up when he saw Matthew and his gang of big boys run past, voices carrying backwards towards him and loud laughter that only sounded mean. He tightened in on himself, not wanting to be caught in whatever game they wanted to play. He watched them underneath his lashes as they went, though—just to see where they were headed.

They started off right towards where Zayn was sitting at the bottom of the big yellow slide, drawing. It made Harry’s throat tighten, the closer they got to him. He couldn’t hear what they said but he saw the moment Zayn looked up, adjusting his glasses over his nose. Harry folded the corner of the page of his book and set it next to his green water bottle on the ground. Matthew picked up one of Zayn’s drawings and he looked like he was threatening to tear it. At that, Harry took off after the group without a second thought, his palms heating up immediately. He jumped up into the bark dust where the play structure sat, everything going blurry around him.

“Stop it!” He yelled at the same time all four boys surrounding Zayn tripped backwards, one all the way to his knees, the drawing in Matthew’s hands floating back to Zayn’s side gracefully. Harry’s eyes went wide at the scene even when Zayn looked over towards him, clearly just as frightened.

Matthew stood up straight, the other three boys cowering behind him. He had blood on his chin from falling, his hands in fists at his side. “Bloody freaks, both of you,” he spit. “Filthy freaks.” Harry didn’t get a chance to respond, the boys already tearing off across the playground.

“Um, hi,” Zayn said as Harry came closer not meeting his eyes.

“Hey.” Harry sat down on the slide, next to the one Zayn was on, “It’s Zayn, right?” He said it like he didn’t already know.

“Yeah.” He collected his pencils in his hand and shoved them deep in his coat pocket. Harry watched as he kneaded his hand over his forehead, again and again, the way Harry had already noticed he did during class sometimes.  “You’re Harry Styles.”

Harry nodded, eyes still focused on where Zayn was rubbing his head. “Are you okay?” Zayn looked at him with a question in his eyes and Harry placed two fingers against his own forehead.

Zayn dropped his hand quickly, tucked it inside the pocket of his jacket with the pencils. “Oh, that. Just get headaches sometimes.”

Harry nodded, not quite sure what to say next. The wind picked up and one of Zayn’s drawings lifted from the force but Harry caught it between two hands with a clap. “Do you mind if I look at it?” 

Zayn’s eyebrows furrowed for a moment and then, “Yeah, sure.”

“I don’t have to.” Harry didn’t make a move to turn the page over, “I’m kind of nosy. At least that’s what my older sister Gemma says. I just like to know things and touch things, you know? Sorry. I also ramble.”

“Does your older sister Gemma tell you that too?”

Harry wasn’t sure if he was being made fun of so he went with what he knew best, complete honestly. “No, my whole family, really. Even my step dad Robin tells me sometimes. My cousins sometimes stop listening to me because they think my stories are boring and--Sorry. Again.”

“Don't be. I  kind of like it.” Zayn smirked and nodded at the drawing still in Harry’s hands, “You can look, by the way. I’m just not used to people actually asking.”

Harry smiled, albeit sheepishly, and turned the drawing over slowly. He didn’t know what he expected to see, maybe because his best drawings were trees and a house on a good day. Not Zayn. He had drawn Batman scaling a building with exquisite details, some so small Harry drew his finger along the intricate lines just to prove they were there.

“You like superheroes?” Harry had been told he was too old to like stuff like that, made fun of more than once for his Power Rangers backpack and Ninja Turtle pencil box. 

“Yeah.” Zayn’s voice was defensive as his cheeks turned pink. He reached to take the drawing back put Harry pulled it closer to himself.

“No, no, um, me too,” Harry said quickly. “A lot. Do you have more?”

They sat on the big slides, side by side, as they flipped through Zayn’s drawings for the rest of break. There were superheroes and animals and witches—Harry loved each one. “These are amazing,” he offered at a loss for a way to articulate how talented he thought Zayn was. He thought Zayn might have understood anyway with the smile he gave him in return.

When the wind started to turn into a pounding rain, they collected the drawings as fast as they could, tucking them under their jackets as they ran for the school. They stopped the second they were under cover trying to straighten out the drawings. Harry remembered his book right as the bell rang and his heart jumped to his throat. He looked back towards where his copy of Harry Potter lay on the cement, rain pounding down from the dark skies. He dashed out after it and pressed it to his chest as he ran back under the cover again, eyebrows pulling together when he looked down at it.

“Is it ruined?” Zayn leaned in close to look at the book and he smelled like spring rain and something sweet. Harry didn’t even flinch when Zayn took the book from his hands—it was the first time he remembered ever paying attention to the way a boy smelled before.

“What?” Harry looked up at Zayn, blinking slowly as he zoned back in to whatever he had been saying.

“Oh, I was just saying to set it out at home and it’ll dry,” Zayn said holding out the book. “I think the pages might tear if you don’t.”

Harry nodded, something heavy sinking in his stomach. He had planned to spend all weekend reading it after he’d finished his homework. Maybe his mum would let him use her hairdryer on it.

They went their separate ways in class, back to their assigned seats. At the end of the day, Harry waved when Zayn left and Zayn gave him a smile back, one of the ones Harry would learn was his signature, with his nose scrunched and his tongue pushed against the backs of his teeth.

Friday morning, Zayn got into class just after Harry. “Did your book dry?” He asked right away.

“Not yet,” Harry whispered as everyone started moving towards their seats. “It’s so thick it might take a while.”

Zayn nodded and bit his lip as he set his backpack on Harry's desk. He unzipped the bag and pulled out an older,  well-loved copy of the _Goblet of Fire_ , “Here. Borrow mine for the weekend. Maybe yours will be dry after that.” It shouldn’t have made Harry so warm inside as Zayn set the book down and then went back to his chair. It wasn’t like he’d never made friends before but it had never felt like this.

Two weeks later, Harry’s mum dropped him off at Zayn’s house for a sleepover and he made her swear to stay in the car instead of getting out to introduce herself to Mrs. Malik. Anne stared at him for a couple of moments before she nodded and let him get out of the car alone. She blew him a kiss as he went up the driveway and, after making sure no one was looking, he pretended to grab it and stick it in his coat pocket.

Zayn’s house buzzed from the second he opened his front door for Harry. His three sisters were screaming at each other as his dad tried to get them to stop pulling each others' hair and his mum came out of the kitchen with a mixing bowl to ask Harry if he liked spicy food. For once, Harry felt like he belonged after just a few minutes. They watched _X-Men_ on the couch, later, after the rest of the Maliks had gone to bed, sharing a monster size pack of gummy bears between them. Hanging out with Zayn was easy, as if they’d always been friends—telling jokes and stories, comparing favorite movies and comic books. Harry started to feel like he might be able to tell Zayn anything but he didn’t do it just then. The last thing he wanted was the glowing purple mark on his arm, the one that made him run faster than a car on the motorway, to scare Zayn away. He didn’t think he could take losing his first real friend.

Even later that night, almost midnight, they lay side by side in Zayn’s bed; looking up at the Superman posters he had hung on his ceiling. In between each one were those glow in the dark sticker stars.

“Do you like it here?” Harry asked quietly when Zayn finished telling him about how he moved from Bradford to their small town the summer before.

“Most of the time. I think some of the kids at school think I’m a freak, though.”

Harry snorted, “Me too. I mean, they think I am too.”

Zayn was quiet for a moment. “I’m glad we found each other, then.”

Harry hummed quietly, pulling the covers up higher to his chin. “You know the saying, two is better than one? Maybe that's about us."

"We better stick together, then,” Zayn whispered.

Harry grinned into his pillow, Zayn’s pillow as it technically was. Outside of his immediate family, he was unsure if there was anyone else who could ever understand him or like the things about him that he liked the most. For the first time, Zayn made him feel that, maybe, it wasn't so impossible.

*~

Harry gets to his gate over four hours early. There’s a whole other group of people already there, waiting to board the flight that leaves before his meaning there is hardly any room to sit in the terminal. He finds the last chair over by one of the big windows in between two couples. He knows he’s lucky to have been able to book his flight at all considering it had been three in the morning when he’d entered his credit card numbers into the British Airways app to buy the ticket. He’d been flexible on where he was going—far away was his only requirement. There was a flight to New York this afternoon he could have booked, but he passed it by in favor of Spain. He's saving his trip to America for something else—someone else. Maybe it’s not _is_ so much as _was_ , now. He shakes his head and stands back up from the chair by the windows. He’s too antsy to sit still.

He puts his bag over his shoulder and walks towards the bathrooms just for something to do. He pisses and then gets hit with his own reflection in the mirror over the sink while he washes his hands. It’s startling—the dark circles around his eyes, the redness still there from being up all night. He doesn’t think he looks twenty-six like he did when he woke up yesterday. He’s rather surprised they let him through security at all as he tries to get blood flowing under the skin on his face. He looks worn out, aged. His skin is paler than usual, greasy hair falling out of a sloppy bun. He tries to readjust it, sniffling a bit as he does. As he turns to leave, he catches a glimpse of a red mark under his ear, one that’s fresh, one he would normally press his fingers against just for the ghost of pain. Instead, he tugs on his bun to make it a little looser to cover it and leaves without a second glance.

He stops to buy some magazines at the newsstand on the concourse, buying three at random, a huge bottle of water and a protein bar. He turns towards the candy section, the brightly colored packages hanging in enticing rows. He reaches towards a pack of peanut M&Ms (he swears the peanuts make them healthy) but pauses when his fingers pass the golden pack of Haribo gummy bears. He fingers the edge of that pack and finds himself getting light headed from not breathing. He pushes out a deep breath, his lips shaking, as he grabs the peanut M&Ms and turns away. He sets all of his stuff on the counter, biting his lip as a kid in a blue polo shirt rings him up.

“Wait,” Harry says right as he’s scanning the last magazine. He crosses to the other side of the stand and rips the gummy bear pack from the shelf, “These too, please.” He puts them on the counter, his thumb tucking back against his ring finger again.

“Sure thing, mate.” The kid gives him an uncertain look before he rings the gummy bears up too. Harry collects his purchases in his arms after he pays and heads back towards his gate. He keeps his gaze cast downwards when he feels his eyes start to cloud over and he blinks away any tears that might be trying to escape. He wonders if he’ll ever be able to eat stupid rainbow gummy bears without thinking about him, about Zayn, and all the times they shared a pack, split the red ones in half. He vaguely wonders if he’ll ever stop thinking about him at all. So far he has yet to make it five minutes. If only he could see Harry now--crying over gummy bears all alone in the airport.

*~

They’d been friends for almost three years and they knew just about everything there was to know about each other. It was still just the two of them at school--everyone else seemed to think the things that made them "weird" might be contagious. Harry and Zayn found it hard to be bothered by it all, spending time exploring their small town on their bikes and watching movies instead. They had even started working on a comic book series together. One where Zayn drew the pictures and Harry wrote the story to go along with the images. They held official meetings about it at Harry’s kitchen table while his mum cooked them dinner and watched with a smile. Other times, they’d have production meetings at Zayn’s house, spread out on the floor in his room as they worked. They made each book personalized and by hand because Zayn’s older sister told them it would be more marketable that way. It was harder to do, and sometimes their hands ached but they believed her. Zayn’s mum would make them snacks or give them each a pack of gummy bears as they drew and wrote into the night, talking about how they would sell their books and move to London, live in Primrose Hill like in the movies.

Some of the kids at school made fun of them for always being together and whispering quietly during group activities or passing notes when the teacher was talking. Zayn was the smart one, though. Even when they got called on unexpectedly, he could always answer the questions correctly. Harry had all the charm, smiling and dimpling his way through any trouble they got in. Yaser told them he thought trouble might be their middle names when he picked them both up from after school detention one day. Sometimes Harry thought he might be right. They weren’t bad kids though, together they were just curious.

One time they tried to go under the school through one of the vents only to get pulled out by their ankles to face two very angry security guards.

“We didn’t know that wasn’t allowed,” Harry said, rubbing a smudge of dust from his cheek. He smiled in the bashful way he was learning got him a lot of places he needed to go.

“Honestly, it’s my fault,” Zayn said.

Harry’s smile dimmed as he looked over at him. He wouldn’t let Zayn take the fall when it had been Harry’s idea to try to go under in the first place. He went to say as much when Zayn shook his head, almost infinitesimally.

“I read a report that a lot of schools have chemicals in the dirt of their foundations,” Zayn lied and Harry tried not to let his laughter slip from between his lips, curling them under. “I was just wondering if ours did too. Wouldn’t want everyone to be in danger.”

The security guards didn’t seem like they were buying it and Harry got nervous again, his smile falling and heat rising up his neck. He and Zayn may like being curious but Harry hated getting in trouble. Right then, though, Zayn sighed and squeezed his eyes shut tight. Harry's eyes went wide watching, knowing something big was about to happen. The next thing he knew the fire alarm was blaring through the hallways with red lights flashing. Harry and Zayn were swept away in a wave of students exiting their classrooms, the security guards already forgetting about them in favor of directing the human traffic. Harry didn’t say anything about it as they ran out to where their classes were supposed to meet. Even as Zayn rubbed at his head for the rest of the afternoon, mumbling the _headache_ excuse Harry was always used to hearing.

It wasn’t the first time something strange happened with Zayn and it wasn’t the last, either.

There would be times in class when Zayn didn’t know the answer when he was called on. It was rare but Harry always knew Zayn was clueless by the way he dug his fingernails into his thighs. Instead of admitting he didn't have an answer, though, other things would happen instead. The teacher’s pencil box would fall off her desk or the lights would flicker. When their parents caught them doing the things they weren’t supposed to be—wandering past the Styles’ property lines to the creek or trying to start Zayn’s dads’ lawn mower—Harry knew somehow Zayn would be able to get them out of it. The doorbell would buzz or a phone would ring, Gemma would suddenly need something or there would be an unexplainable crash from inside.They never discussed it but Harry didn’t stop noticing, as they got older. There was something going on with Zayn, he knew, and whether it was the same things that went on with himself, he wasn’t sure. He constantly wanted to blurt it out, “Are you like me?”, but he bit his tongue instead.

They were having a sleepover for Zayn’s fourteenth birthday when everything changed.

Zayn had a party in the afternoon with Harry and some boys from school they both liked. Liam, who was in Harry’s grade and sometimes talked about Batman with them, and Louis, who was in Zayn’s class and sometimes came with them when they went to explore. Four seemed like an odd number so, at the last minute, Harry told Zayn to invite Niall--a boy in his year, who was quiet like them but always laughed at Harry’s jokes. Maybe Zayn knew how Harry felt when people actually laughed at his jokes because he brought a handmade invitation to Niall the next day at lunch.

The party had partly consisted of video games, Zayn and Louis seemed to like that part the most, and then football in the backyard in big jackets, gloves and hats to keep warm. Zayn and Harry were tied for being the most uncoordinated when it came to physical activities and ended up tripping over everything during the match.

“It’s quite odd, isn't it?” Louis said during halftime.

“What?” Harry asked since he was sitting closest to him on the grass.

“You’re fast but incredibly uncoordinated.” He didn’t seem to be accusing Harry--his tone was more musing than anything. Harry choked on the gulp of water in his mouth and Niall hit his back rather unhelpfully.

“That’s Haz,” Zayn interrupted from across their little circle. “Could be a track star if he didn’t trip over his own two feet.”

“It’s just odd is all,” Louis repeated, pursing his lips like he had something else to say. The topic was dropped a moment later when, somehow, Louis’ water bottle tipped over in his lap and spilled on his pants. Harry looked towards Zayn as soon as it happened but he was looking straight up at the sky, a smirk on his lips.

Zayn managed to score one goal in the last minute of the match but that was only after he and Liam got into an argument about how the goal had seemed to shift to the left whenever Zayn kicked the ball.

“Come on, Liam,” Harry said, “That would be impossible.”

Zayn looked at Harry, something flashing in his eyes, before he said, “Yeah, what do you think? I have super powers or something?” It made all five boys laugh but Harry could have sworn him and Zayn were both laughing the quietest.

Zayn would always be Harry’s best friend but he liked the three other boys well enough, even if he was slightly happy when their parents picked them all up after cake and ice cream.

“You can stay the night,” Zayn said as they waved at Niall right before his mum’s car turned the corner.

“I have to tell my mum and Robin,” Harry said, “But I kind of already planned on it.”

They grinned at each other as they ran back inside, excited to have it back to just the two of them after a few hours of trying to be social.

“Do you ever wonder about, like, super powers?” Zayn asked after they finished watching American Pie—it’d taken nearly an hour of begging Zayn’s mum before she let them rent it.

Harry’s hands went hot in a way they hadn’t in a long time—not when he constantly made an effort to go slow, never run unless he had to. “Sometimes.” He still didn’t know how to lie very well. “Why?”

“Just wondering,” Zayn said quietly, setting the empty popcorn bowl back on the table.

Harry hummed and almost let the topic drop but something pushed the words out of his lips before he could consciously stop them. “I need to tell you something.”

Zayn turned towards Harry on the couch, pulled his knees up to his chest. “Okay.”

Harry exhaled once, unsure of how to even begin approaching the topic. He’d never told anyone about what he could do—what he was—apart from his family but they didn’t count. He wondered if he was even allowed to say it to other people but this was Zayn, his Zayn, he could tell him.

“So, like, I’m kind of different,” Harry started. Zayn snorted and Harry flipped him off— _okay_ , maybe stating the obvious wasn’t the best approach. “You know how I can run fast?” He tried again.

“Yeah,” Zayn said, his eyes focused right on Harry.

“It’s, um, I don’t know how to explain it really.” He pulled at his bottom lip with his thumb and forefinger but Zayn just kept waiting for him to go on. He squeezed his eyes shut, “It’s like a super power, kind of. I have a mark on my arm that kind of connects to it and it basically makes me really fast.” He kept his eyes closed for a hanging moment after, waiting for Zayn to say something. Instead, he felt the weight shift on the couch as Zayn got up. Harry’s heart sunk in his chest, in a way, at twelve going on thirteen, he didn’t yet know was possible. He opened his eyes and stared at his knees, drawing shapes on the denim of his jeans. “I know that might be weird and I understand if it changes things but, like, you’re my best friend and—“

“Harry.” Zayn’s voice snapped and Harry looked up—up until that moment he’d half expected Zayn to be getting ready to run down the street but he was standing right there next to him.

“Yeah?”

“It’s not weird, okay?”

"It is, Zayn. You can say it,” Harry wanted to argue but Zayn shook his head.

“Just wait, please.” He gripped the bottom of his shirt and tugged it off. Harry averted his eyes because wanting to look at boys shirtless was another thing he was in the process of figuring out.

“Look,” Zayn said. Harry obeyed, his eyes going right to where Zayn was pointing, a choked gasp making its way out his throat. “Me too."

Zayn’s finger sat right on his hip, a heart done in dark blue just like Harry’s purple star. Harry didn’t know what to say—all he could do was look up with wide eyes, one hundred questions begging behind them.

“Me too,” Zayn said again, softly. He put his shirt back on and sat down. “I found mine when I was six. Or my mum found it, I guess.”

“I thought I was the only one,” Harry said. “Not in a good way, though.”

“I did too.” Zayn’s voice matched Harry’s, the quiet disbelief mixed with the slightest hope.

“What can you—“ Harry paused, still trying to process it all, “What can you do?”

“I can control probability.”

There was a weight lifting off of Harry's chest at the very possibility someone else was like him. “You know I’m shit at maths, Zayn. Help me out a little, yeah?”

Zayn smiled at that, the tension in his face melting slightly. “Like, if there’s a chance of something happening, anything happening, sometimes I can control the probability of it. Only with physical objects not with people’s minds, though. It’s not mind control or anything like that.”

“Like if you’re going to score a goal in footie but only if the goal is shifted slightly to the left?”

“That’s—yeah, exactly.” Zayn’s cheeks were pink in the dark room but he was smiling.

“Like a fire alarm being pulled or a phone ringing at the perfect moment?” Harry’s voice teased then, even as he started rolling up the sleeve of his shirt.

“I thought you were shit at maths,” Zayn laughed, watching Harry’s hand move.

“This is mine,” Harry said when he finally had the sleeve pulled up all the way to show his mark.

Zayn leaned in close to study it before collapsing back on the couch. “I knew you were weird too.”

“It’s a sixth sense,” Harry responded, voice as nonchalant as Zayn’s, “Weird finds weird. Just the way the world works.”

“Exactly,” Zayn said, shrugging easily. They sat in silence for a minute taking in the idea that, for the first time, they weren’t alone in a way they always had been.

“Better stick together, then,” Harry echoed the words from their first sleepover.

Zayn nodded, “We better.”

“Now you see why my mum likes me home at night,” Zayn said when they were in pajamas and lying side by side in his bed upstairs. “She’s scared if people found out about it they might do something. People don’t like weird, you know. It scares them.”

Harry nodded in the dark. He knew exactly what Zayn meant. “That’s why my mum likes me to cover the star. She knows other kids would tell their parents I have a tattoo and not let them play with me.” He snorted, “Not that there are people banging down my door to be my friend anyway.”

Zayn laughed at that, not at all meanly but maybe because he understood too. "Does it ever feel weird after you run? Like, is it ever painful?"

"Yeah, all the time. My hands get really hot like burners on a stove and I can't touch anyone until they cool down," Harry whispered.

"Me too," Zayn's voice was quiet again. "Not hot but I get really bad migraines so I don't like to control too much all at once."

Harry bit his lip, happy that Zayn was curious too. “Do you think there are more people like us, out there? People with marks that have gone wonky and skipped the generations?” Wonder colored Harry’s voice. He had never been able to talk to someone else about the things he felt, the questions he had. Even if Zayn couldn’t answer him, at least he could listen.

“I’ve thought about it, yeah. You can’t necessarily advertise it, can you?” Zayn laughed, “Other superheroes wanted, call this number if you think you might be one.”

Harry laughed with him before he cut it off with, “Heroes? Do you actually think that’s what we are? Like out of comic books?”

It was Zayn’s turn to be quiet as his fingers danced on the sheet between them. “I don’t think so. I think we have powers like the guys in comic books but we’re not meant to save the world.”

“What if we were meant to be heroes but we’ve got it wrong?”

Zayn laughed, “Do you _want_ to fight crime, Haz?”

“I’m just saying maybe that’s what we’re supposed to do.” Harry could see Zayn’s smile even in the dark.

“We don’t have the resources, first of all, to save the world.”

“I guess we don’t really know what we’d be saving it from either, huh?” In Harry's favorite books and movies, everyone already knew who the villain was and how to defeat them.

“Exactly. It’s safer to just be good humans rather than awful, malfunctioning superheroes. Like, I know I use my mind to get us out of trouble but I’d never be mean with it, or do something bad.”

“Same," Harry agreed. It's why he never signed up for sports--even if his clumsiness was overshadowed by his speed, it would still be cheating. "So in this world, universe, whatever, we’re weird kids with good hearts who can run fast and turn on fire alarms when we need to?”

Zayn laughed again, “I think so.”

“I think I can handle that,” Harry said into the darkness, voice soft.

“Same.” Zayn rolled onto his back.

Harry mirrored him, looking up at the ceiling. Zayn’s posters had been taken down the year before when they wanted to decorate their lockers at school with them. The stars were still there though--little glow in the dark stickers Harry fell asleep staring at.

*~

Harry debates calling his mum, as his departing time gets ever closer—they’re supposed to board in fifteen minutes now. Each time his thumb hovers over the call button he stops himself. He doesn’t know how to explain this to his mum, something he can’t even articulate, or justify, to himself yet.

He’s read his three magazines, twice, and made a few laps around the terminal while he's waited. All the while, he has steadfastly ignored the texts and missed calls constantly showing up on his phone. On the lock screen alone, he sees one from Liam: _Lou and I were in a dumb fight...don’t take what I said seriously._ And then, below that, one from Louis: _what the fucking fuck is wrong with you?_

He flips his phone face down on his lap and glances out the window onto the landing strip. It isn’t Liam’s fault and Louis might very well have a point with his text. Harry doesn’t feel inclined to tell either one, though. He doesn’t have any messages from his mum or Gems, so he just assumes they don’t know yet. What they don’t know won’t hurt them—although it is fair to say when they do know they might be the ones hurting _him_.

By the time his flight starts boarding, his hands are sweating with nerves but he shakes them off. He’s still not turning back--this is what he wants. He has to keep repeating that to himself as he makes his way out onto the tarmac and then up into the plane. Each time he repeats it, though, it starts to feel less and less true.

He stows his carry-on in the overhead compartment and settles into his row. There are three seats and he’s got the window in a twist of luck. He presses his forehead against the tiny glass pane, watches as the guys in lime green vests heave luggage up into the belly of the plane. It almost lulls him to sleep, the repetition of movement. At least until a pain in his arm starts up in earnest, right over the purple star, and he’s jolted wide awake.

That’s fine, he decides as he rubs at it absently, he can sleep when he’s dead.

*~

Harry and Zayn were the talk of their town through their teenage years—the quiet ones, always together on the outskirts of town or whispering with their faces too close together.

“I like the mystery of it,” Zayn said one day when they were down by the creek beyond Harry’s house. The one they had never been allowed to go to until one day they stopped asking for permission and just started going.  

Harry rolled his eyes as he followed him down closer to the bank and the rocks they always sat on, “Zayn, they think you stole that painting at the art show, you know.”

He had been at the post office shipping something for Robin that morning when he’d heard Zayn’s name. More like, “the Malik boy” rather than _Zayn_ but he knew all the same. Harry had turned around to face the two women but they pointedly looked away, noses turned up in the air. To them, he wasn’t much better. The weird Styles kid who wouldn’t play organized sports even though he was fast, who flirted shamelessly around town like the whole place was a brothel. He was still a virgin at sixteen but he didn’t feel inclined to share that with them.

“They also think I cheat on tests, make threatening phone calls, slash tires on cars and tag buildings with spray paint.” Zayn counted each offense off on his fingers.

“To be fair, you did tag half the town with graffiti. I was with you.” Harry smiled at the memory, the way the police had shown up and Zayn had made all of the lights turn on in the building as they ran away--one of his better distractions to date.

Zayn grinned as he sat down on his usual rock, black combat boots crossed at his ankles out in front of him. “That’s true. I take that one back then.” Zayn’s hair was styled up in a quiff with a bright pink strip dyed up the front. 

“It’s not fair,” Harry said as he sat down. It was the same thing he said every week. “I’m always with you but they don’t say that stuff about me. They just assume I’m a whore instead.”

He laughed in the self deprecating way he always did but Zayn looked away. Harry knew it annoyed him, the way Harry was treated and talked about sometimes. The worst things they could say about Zayn didn't seem to hurt him half as much as what he heard about Harry.

“White kid with the pretty smile, whore,” Zayn said pointing between them. “Muslim kid being too quiet, criminal.”

Harry groaned as he sat down, rolling his eyes for good measure. “I hate it. I hate this town and all of the people in it. What do they even want from us?”

“They want us to play sports and be nice, date pretty girls and get good jobs. Have three kids two years after we’re married who we then raise in this shitty town to be clones of everyone else. They want to put us in little boxes and make sure we don't blur the edges.”

Harry knew the answer before Zayn said it. Still, it made his heart twitch in his chest at the venom in Zayn’s voice. “Fuck that,” he said after a moment. “I say let’s do the exact fucking opposite. The whole thing backwards and upside down just to piss them off.”

Zayn studied him, “Whole thing?”

“Whole thing,” Harry repeated confidently.

“No wife?” Zayn asked, looking back out over the water.

“No wife,” Harry confirmed. “Maybe someone else though. Instead.” 

“Yeah,” Zayn said. “Maybe.”

Harry wanted to push him further and ask the questions begging on the tip of his tongue but he didn’t know how. They weren't on the same playing field when it came to romance and dating-- not anymore. Zayn had lost his virginity the summer before with a girl a year older. For the first time, it wasn't something they had shared and Harry started to hate when Zayn would talk about it--the way the girl had said his name or the way they'd meet up late at night for almost a month after. At the beginning, Harry thought it was jealousy at the idea of losing his best friend. In time, he started to realize he was jealous of the girl, the one Zayn broke up with by the end of summer -- he was jealous of all the ways she knew Zayn, all the parts she saw that Harry never would. 

“I want a tattoo,” Zayn said standing up suddenly. It was something they’d talked about before, always too scared to do it for real. There wasn’t even a tattoo parlor in town, they would have to drive out to the city. “I want to get something so fucking obvious, Mrs. Verunda actually calls the police.”

Harry laughed at that, as he stood up too. Mrs. Verunda had threatened them with doing it once when they were sitting on the sidewalk sharing a packet of gummy bears. She told them it was a disgrace against her god. Harry didn’t know which kind of god was against sharing gummy bears between friends--not one he had heard of.

“Me too, then.”

“You too?” Zayn turned back towards Harry from where he had started going up the path.

“We always said we’d go together,” Harry said, shrugging. “Not to mention I’ve been inked since I was four, babe. I’m an old pro.”

“There you go again,” Zayn said as he started walking, “You get powers two years younger than me and you hold it over my head like a goddamn prize.” Harry just laughed as they followed the path back to Harry’s house, watching the way Zayn used his mind to adjust the tree branches in front of them and clear the way.

Zayn got a cartoon version of ZAP! on his forearm that afternoon. It was just like the ones they had drawn in their comic books a few years ago. Harry started out small with a solid heart on the front of his left shoulder just like the one Zayn had on his hip.

“It’s not _for_ you,” Harry lied when he told Zayn what he was getting, “It’s more like the _memory_ that you were here when I got my first tattoo.”

“It’s your second,” Zayn corrected as he climbed up in the chair next to Harry’s seemingly unbothered by the permanence of what Harry was doing.

That night Harry thought about what Zayn said at the creek--about not having a wife. He wondered if he meant never getting married or something else instead. He wanted to know if Zayn was the same as him -- if Zayn felt the same ways he did. He needed to know if it was his imagination, the way Zayn would look at him sometimes, the heat of when they would brush their hands together -- the way it seemed like everything they did was forever, like it might never go away.

They spent most of their free afternoons in Louis’ garage during those few years of transitioning from boys to lads, playing video games or off in abandoned parking lots skateboarding and riding tricked out bikes. Harry and Niall mostly preferred laying in the grass and telling dumb stories to each other while Zayn, Louis and Liam pretended to be cool on their bikes. And, when they were a bit older, they started spending nights getting high in Louis' garage off of weed from one of Liam's sisters or drinking warm beer Niall stole from his brother.

One such night, Harry was particularly stroppy as they were officially eight months away from Zayn and Louis leaving to Manchester for university while the other three would be left behind.

“We’re all like a puzzle,” Harry said, his mind running in lazy loops as they sat in a circle. “A five piece puzzle.”

He and Zayn were sprawled on the couch, Harry’s feet in Zayn’s lap for no reason other than that’s how they always sat in Louis’ garage. Niall was lying on the ground with the joint between his lips. As Harry let his lazy eyes drag around he found that Louis had moved from where he had been sitting on the floor to being in the chair with Liam on his lap. He didn't remember seeing that happen.

“Five?” Niall laughed over an exhale of smoke. “More like four.”

“Bit rude, Nialler,” Louis said.

“Nah, like, Zayn and Harry are one piece. You know? Name me one time you’ve seen Harry and no Zayn. Or just Zayno and no Haz.” Zayn grabbed Harry’s ankle, squeezing as they laughed and rolled their eyes.

“If there’s a two person piece it’s me and Lou,” Liam said loudly.

“Li,” Louis’ voice held a warning that made Harry sit up look over quickly, or as quick as he could manage through his haze. “Not like this.”

“Then when?” Liam was looking at Louis in a way that made Harry feel like he was intruding. He lay back down slowly and Zayn started tracing his anklebone with his thumb, eyes fixed on the floor.

“I want another tattoo,” Harry said to cover up the sounds as Liam and Louis started aggressively whispering.

“What do you want to get, babe?” Zayn focused his heavy eyes on Harry’s. Niall was too busy trying to blow smoke in the shape of an O to seem to notice anything going on around him.

Harry hummed as he thought. He already had two birds on his chest and the heart and the star, a smattering of little things and a ship on his bicep. “Butterfly,” he said finally. “Right here.” He touched his stomach and Zayn reached out to cover his hand with his own.

“On your stomach?” Zayn seemed surprised.

Harry nodded easily, “Yep.”

Zayn nodded, “Okay. I’ll come with. I don’t know what I’ll get next but I’ll think of something.”

“My face,” Niall interrupted loudly, “Right on your arse.”

“Ace idea, Ni. How do you do it?” Zayn rolled his eyes before snapping his fingers and looking over at Harry. “Haz, I think we should get a tattoo gun. We can just learn to do ink ourselves, save money."

Before Harry could even respond, Liam’s voice cut through the smoky haze. “Louis and I are together.”

“Clearly.” Niall cackled at his own joke from the floor. Harry sat up and looked over at them, something cold seeping through his bones.

“We’re dating, or skipped the dating and went straight to being together,” Louis said. “I wanted to tell you some other way yet here we are and Payno has jumped the fucking gun.”

“Congrats, mates.” Zayn was the first to speak followed by Niall’s loud clapping and then coughing over the joint.

“That’s—yeah, congratulations,” Harry said quietly. His stomach was doing flips and he felt like he was about to lose his dinner.

“Tommo, Haz and I are getting a tattoo gun, you want in?” Zayn took the joint from Niall and held it with two fingers, changing the subject easily.

“I’m actually going to head home,” Harry said sitting up, fast enough to make his head spin.

“I deffo want in on the gun, Zed.” Louis looked towards Harry, “You okay, Harold?”

Harry untwisted his ankles from Zayn and stood up. He pretended not to notice Zayn’s steadying hand on the back of his thigh as he wobbled to find his balance. “Yeah, I’m good. Lima probably just got us bad weed.”

“Don’t call me Lima,” Liam said rather than fight the bad weed accusation.

“I’ll walk you home,” Zayn said standing up and Harry shook his head, not looking at him.

“Nah, s’alright. I’ll be okay.” He took a step away but Zayn grabbed his wrist.

“I’m walking you home,” he said evenly grabbing his jacket off the back of the couch. “It’s dark and you're high as fuck.”

“So are you,” Harry said, still not looking at him. He didn’t add that he could outrun anyone who tried anything with him, as if anyone would try, as if Zayn didn't already know.

“So? Two is better than one, Haz.”

Harry scoffed, annoyance running thick. He was seventeen and soon be left behind in the town where he didn’t fit in without the one person who made it bearable. To add to it, he was suddenly jealous that Louis and Liam were, evidently, in a relationship with each other. They were best friends and now they would be best friends who got to kiss each other, and sit too close without anyone asking questions--they got to be together in every way while he and Zayn didn’t and, probably, never would. Harry hated that he couldn't look at Zayn as he pulled on his own jacket but he didn't know how to stop the emotions rolling through him in tidal waves, his bad mood only getting far worse.

“Zaynie, s’cute when you get all protective like this,” Louis drawled, wrapping an arm around Liam’s chest so he’d lie back against him.

“Shut up, Tommo.” Harry and Zayn saidat the same time making the other three laugh. Harry couldn’t find it within himself to acknowledge the humor.

Out on the sidewalk, in the utter darkness on an empty street, Harry walked ahead of Zayn, his boots making a clicking sound compared to the thud of Zayn’s heavier combat boots.

“Would you stop being a brat and fucking walk with me?”

Harry slowed down until Zayn could catch up, still not looking at him but walking next to him all the same.

“What has gotten into you?” Zayn asked as they went another two blocks without talking. “Or are you going to ignore me now?”

Harry shrugged biting the inside of his cheek. He knew he was being a brat, knew it well, but he refused make more of a fool of himself and admit the truth about what he felt. He wouldn’t jeopardize everything they had by publicizing his unrequited love.

“Fucking stop it, Harry.” Zayn grabbed his wrist and spun him around, completely catching him off guard. He put his arms out to side, voice almost defeated, “Tell me what the fuck is going on. I’m right here, let me help you.”

Harry shook his head and glanced down towards the ground. Unless he could come up with a lie Zayn wouldn’t be able to see through, he was going to have to admit a sliver of the truth. He just didn’t know what sliver that would be.

“Are you jealous?”

Harry looked up at that. 

“Of Louis? Like, I know you guys have been close that last few years but if he’s with Liam you have to let that happen—“ Zayn stopped talking when Harry started laughing, a loud, empty sound reverberating off of the houses coated in darkness. “Don’t laugh at me.”

Harry could see the hurt written on Zayn's face, the hurt he felt echoed in his own chest—the way he did when anything hurt Zayn. “Not Louis, no,” Harry said, finally.

“Then of Liam? It’s a dick move to get off shitting on someone else’s happiness, Haz.” Zayn rolled his eyes, “You're too late and now they’re taken. Move the fuck on and be a good friend.”

He started walking again after Harry stayed silent, pushing right past him. He took two big steps to catch up to Zayn, stopped him with his hand on his arm and stood in front of him to block the sidewalk. “I’m gay, I think. Or, I like boys and maybe girls sometimes. But mostly boys." The words stuttered out and he hadn’t really planned on saying that part first but it was as good of place as any to start.

“Join the club,” Zayn said crossing his arms over his chest. That made Harry stop all over again, his words stuck in his throat.

“You?”

“Thought you knew.” Zayn’s voice was quiet like when they were eight and nine on the playground and he thought Harry was making fun of him for liking superheroes.

 “I didn’t,” Harry said back just as quiet. Zayn nodded and took a step around Harry to keep walking but Harry got in his way again. He took a deep breath and held it.

“What, Haz? Spit it out.”

“I love you,” Harry said. “I’m in love with you as way more than my best friend. Might have been since you gave me that copy of Harry Potter. Maybe I am jealous of Louis and Liam. But only that they get to date their best friend, the one person who knows everything about them. I wanted that,” he shook his head, if he was taking this chance, he was going for it, “I want that.”

Zayn’s demeanor changed slowly, no longer quiet but a smirk on his lips. “You think you love me, huh?”

Harry’s lip twitched, “Always might have, I think.”

“Hm,” Zayn shrugged and took a step closer.

“Hm?” Harry repeated, eyebrows shooting up.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Zayn continued when Harry nodded, “When you got up to leave just now, I was jealous of Lou. I thought you were in love with him. Then, you said it wasn’t Louis, and I was jealous of Li. You wanna know why?” He hooked his thumbs in the pocket of Harry’s hooded sweatshirt and pulled him in closer. Harry went so, so easily right into Zayn's space like he belonged.

Harry’s heart couldn’t have beat faster if he wanted it to, his star was even aching whether warning him of a heart attack or something else he didn’t know. His mouth was dry but he managed to whisper, “Why's that?”

“I wanted to be the one that made you storm out of rooms because you were so wildly jealous over it. I wanted it to be me and you curled up on a tiny chair because we’re the two person puzzle piece, not them. I wanted to be the one you were in love with.”

Harry laughed at that, leave it to Zayn to be jealous of a metaphor. Harry swallowed, “Guess it's your lucky day.”

“M’gonna kiss you now,” he said, one hand resting on the side of Harry’s neck, thumb tracing his jawline over and over.

“You better,” Harry whispered.

The words were lost against Zayn’s lips as they kissed, softly at first until Harry wrapped an arm around Zayn’s waist to pull him in tighter. Zayn traced his tongue over Harry’s lips and then further, teasing his mouth open in a way no one else had ever done to him. He wrapped one hand in his hair and pulled slightly, made heat coil in Harry’s stomach as he pressed Zayn to him even tighter. A whine escaped Harry’s mouth, low and dragging against Zayn’s lips as he felt chills roll down his back. A sudden snapping sound overhead made them look up and then stumble backwards, away from each other, as a tree branch crashed to the ground right between them.

“You tryin’ to kill us?” Harry wiped his mouth with the back of his hand from where he was sprawled on the pavement.

“You did that,” Zayn said standing back up, pointing at the clean break on the tree.

Harry tilted his head and moved to get up too, “Pretty sure I outrun falling tree branches whereas someone I know makes them break in half.”

Zayn stepped over the branch to grab Harry’s hand in his, “Excuse me, my mistake. You made me do that.”

Harry grinned and rolled his eyes, “I could get used to that kind of power.”

*

Harry’s mum said he and Zayn got along like a house on fire when they met as kids. After their first kiss, Harry thought they were more like a house covered in gasoline and set ablaze.

Zayn bought the tattoo gun and they tattooed screws into each other’s ankles a week later. Liam and Louis got in on the action too but as soon as they left Zayn’s room, Zayn was in Harry’s lap pulling their mouths together and curving his arms around Harry's neck. They made out on Zayn’s desk chair for another hour, rubbing against each other through their jeans, with the tattoo gun still plugged in next to them. Harry couldn't get enough of kissing Zayn, of the way he felt when they rutted against each other, of the fully body shivers he got when Zayn kissed along his jaw and down his neck. Zayn made something in him break loose, made his insides run wild just by holding his hands while he kissed him.

Their parents were enthusiastically supportive of the idea that they were dating even though they put a ban on sleepovers effective immediately. It didn’t stop them from crawling through each others' windows late at night only to sneak out again early in the morning. Sometimes they would kiss for hours or touch each other in the dark, other times they would just sleep. At seventeen, Harry learned that he slept best with Zayn wrapped around his back and his face pressed to Harry's neck. At seventeen, he realized there was no one else that could take Zayn's place--no one else he would want to.

Harry’s butterfly was finished in two sessions at the tattoo parlor just outside of town with Zayn holding his hand with both of his the entire time. He had entertained the thought of letting Zayn do the design he drew but Zayn had been too scared of hurting him to even try. Instead, they trusted their regular tattoo guy to get Zayn's art transferred to Harry's body seamlessly. Zayn drove them home afterwards and Harry refused to put a shirt on for the entire drive admiring his cellophane wrapped ink. Zayn had gotten angel wings on his chest that day too, to go along with Harry’s birds, but he left his shirt on.

The day the butterfly healed Harry was lying in bed when his phone lit up with a text, _wanna make you come on that butterfly, haz._ Harry couldn’t remember a time before that when his fingers had moved so quickly, inviting Zayn over immediately. Zayn climbed in the window, green in his hair that week, and straight into Harry’s bed not fifteen minutes later. He cupped Harry's face with warm hands as he kissed him, pinned his wrists back by his head when they rutted together. It was nothing like Harry had done with girls and everything about it made him see shooting stars behind his eyes. There was no comparison to draw as Harry pushed down his joggers and briefs that night and Zayn threw off his shirt and jeans so they were bare against each other, breathless and desperate.

“Gonna get my mouth on you one of these days,” Zayn whispered against Harry’s neck, biting his ear lobe.

“Do it, right now, all of it,” Harry panted. He’d waited long enough and he wanted everything.

“No, babes,” Zayn said quickly, pulling back to look down at Harry’s face. “We’re going slow.” Harry agreed, really, just not when Zayn was naked on top of him, rolling his hips forward.

Harry lifted his hips against Zayn’s in response, biting his lip with his teeth, “You gonna make me come on the butterfly or what?”

Zayn rolled his eyes as he kissed down Harry’s chest, sucking and biting on his nipples with one hand over his mouth so his mum wouldn’t come running thinking something was wrong. “Why you gotta be so loud?” Zayn laughed against his stomach, cutting off anything else Harry might want to say when he took his cock in his hand. Harry saw flashes of white as his mouth dropped open in a silent moan caught in his throat. “Oh, that makes you shut up, huh?”

If Harry had any control of his body then, he would have rolled his eyes, instead he pulled Zayn’s face back up to his. “First time, wanna see you,” Harry choked out and Zayn nodded, pressing their foreheads together. Even if Zayn had more experience, Harry knew it wasn’t the same as being with a guy—being with him.

“Grab me,” Zayn said, directing Harry’s hand and groaning when he caught on, both holding each other, bodies slick with sweat from making out and eyes only on each other.

Harry bit his bottom lip hard enough to hurt as Zayn started to twist his wrist around Harry’s cock, mirroring the movements with his own hand on Zayn. It was sloppy after that, licking their palms and teeth gnashing against each other when they tried to kiss. Figuring it out as they went, Harry’s stomach clenching in hot waves with each brush of Zayn’s fingers, tightening of his fist. Harry came first, a breathy sound pushing from his lips that Zayn kissed away, as his cheeks flushed red at coming so quickly. He barely had a chance to let the embarrassment settle before Zayn was coming too, falling flat on Harry and biting his neck as he spilled up and over his hand, hot and wet and so gorgeous Harry’s breath  stopped somewhere near the bottom of his lungs.

They kissed lazily afterwards until Zayn pushed up to look between them, Harry’s butterfly covered in come from both of them. “Just as pretty as I imagined,” he said, kissing Harry’s jaw again.

“You’ve been imagining?” Harry asked quietly.

“Only for the last two years.”

Harry’s dick twitched against Zayn’s thigh at his words and they laughed together, quickly realizing they still didn’t get embarrassed around each other even without clothes on. The same went when Zayn choked on Harry’s dick a week later and apologized profusely over his coughing before Harry could find the words to say it was the hottest thing he’d seen in his seventeen years of life. When Harry returned the favor, he sucked a mark onto Zayn’s blue heart that made the lights flicker in the house and Zayn’s sisters scream about a ghost from downstairs.

They spent every moment together as they always had, though a few more under the sheets or pressed against walls, with a lot less clothes than they had before. They were still the Malik boy and the Styles kid, the overly tattooed, too quiet boys who put random streaks of color in their hair and had to be up to no good. Worse, suddenly, because they were, “apparently gay together”.

 “ _Apparently_ ”, Gemma explained over dinner, since she was the one who heard it in town while on a visit home from uni, “because holding hands and being in a committed relationship isn’t enough for it to be officially confirmed.”

“They don’t get it. Whatever,” Zayn said over a bite of the stew Anne had made for all of them. “We don’t need a red carpet of acceptance laid out for us. We know what we have.”

Harry shrugged right on back, toe tapping against Zayn’s ankle under the table.

Maybe they weren’t in a town that openly accepted them for who they were but they had plans, bigger plans, than the boundaries of a small town couldn't hold back. Zayn would go to university in two months, Harry would meet him there in a year and they would move to London after. They were going to road trip across America and spend a week in Greece, travel to Spain and backpack in South America. Nothing was going to stop them and definitely not small minded people who made snarky comments to Harry's sister.

“I’m so proud of you both,” Anne said, smiling at them and shaking her head slowly. “Always.”

She was constantly telling them she was proud, that they could do whatever they wanted if they put their minds to it. Except for any tattoos below the wrists that was her one rule--for Harry at least. She knew she couldn’t control Zayn, especially not after he showed her a design for a mandala he wanted on his hand after dinner.

“Does your mum know?” She asked, touching the lines in Zayn's sketchbook.

“She likes it,” Zayn said, Harry holding onto his hand with both of his and biting his lip as he watched them. Harry knew Zayn liked to talk to Anne, to show her his art even if it was art he wanted permanently on his body.

“Good. It will look very nice then,” Anne said with a nod. “None for you mister,” she looked back at Harry smiling against Zayn’s shoulder, “But that will look gorgeous, Zayn.”

Their families fit perfectly together in the same way Harry and Zayn did, getting together for Sunday night dinners that Harry would help Trisha make, all going to see Zayn’s art when he put it on display in a coffee shop that summer before he left for university. They understood Harry and Zayn, and the things they saw in each other. They didn’t always like the rebellious streak they saw in the boys with their tattoo obsessions or the pink, blue and green highlights they'd put in their hair. Nor did they love the things they knew about sneaking through bedroom windows late at night or tagging buildings with graffiti even later at night, but they understood how much they cared for each other.

“That’s enough for me,” Yaser would say. “Love each other and don’t get arrested and I won’t say a damn thing.”

*~

Harry taps his thighs impatiently as the rest of the passengers board the plane. He knows he doesn’t rule the world but if he did he would ask everyone to please hurry up so the wheels can get off the ground. Partly because he doesn’t like to sit still, partly because he doesn’t know what he’ll do if he’s left on the ground in London with his thoughts for much longer.

He stares at the two empty seats beside him and realizes the strangers who are about to sit there are a complete gamble. They might make him talk or ask him questions he doesn't want to answer. He hasn’t put his rings back on so the tattooed one is still visible, and he really doesn’t want to entertain a single question concerning that. He knows his headphones are in his bag overhead and as soon as sees a gap in the line of people boarding, he scoots into the aisle.

The compartment opens with a click and he grabs his bag, resting it on the top of the aisle seat while he unzips it. In the rush of leaving, he knows he had haphazardly thrown the pair in the very bottom and he tries not to upturn the entire bag for the whole plane to see while he looks. He ruffles around some of his clothes, frowning when a blue jumper falls onto the seat. He leaves it--just in case it gets cold on the flight. He wraps his hand around the cord when he feels it and pulls it out, balling it in his hand. He zips the bag up and hoists it back in the compartment. There’s a couple, two rows back from him, sharing one pair of headphones and looking out the window. 

He shuts the overhead compartment and goes back to his seat, headphone and jumper in his lap. He doesn’t recognize it right away, barely remembers grabbing it off the floor of the flat. He turns it over to see Manchester University printed in white lettering. He only knows one person who would actually buy university apparel and it’s not him. Despite his best intentions, he pulls the jumper to his face and takes a deep breath in. Tears prick his eyes as he drops it back to his lap and cradles his face in his hands. All he can think in that moment, the only smell he’s left with, is the smell of home. The one he broke, the one he’s leaving behind.

*~

They had sex for the first time two weeks before Zayn moved to Manchester. Harry had begged for months but Zayn kept putting it off, scared of hurting Harry, scared of what it would change. Before Zayn left, though, Harry wanted him in every possible way—no matter what. He had put his mouth on every part of Zayn, had Zayn’s mouth on him, but he wanted the last part to finally be theirs.

“My parents are taking the girls to London,” Zayn said nonchalantly while they were eating lunch at the diner in town near the end of that summer.

“Okay,” Harry shrugged, taking a bite of his sandwich.

Zayn rolled his eyes like Harry was being dense. “Okay so come over, stay at mine this weekend. Like a proper get away.”

Harry’s chewing slowed, “Oh. Like they’re going for the weekend, then?”

Zayn played with Harry’s hand on top of the table, “Leaving Friday, coming home Sunday. I say, let’s not leave the bed once.”

Harry’s eyes went wide, glancing around to see if anyone was listening but there was no one close enough. “Okay. Deal.” He grinned so wide after he swallowed that Zayn leaned across the table and kissed him, bit his bottom lip to leave him breathless.

“Gross.” Matthew, the guy who had been a prick since they were eight and nine, intoned from two booths away.

Harry leaned forward and kissed Zayn that time, pressing his tongue into Zayn’s mouth, flipping Matthew and his crew the bird as he did it.

“Idiots,” Matthew hissed but he didn’t say anything else after Zayn looked over at him and made his drink spilled all across the burger he was eating.

If anyone knew that Zayn had Harry’s lips tattooed on his chest or rescued a litter of bunnies from Harry’s backyard or had watched a YouTube tutorial so he could put purple streaks in Harry’s hair for him, they wouldn’t be so scared of him. As it was, Harry loved the way he made people cower, the way his eyes could go scarily dark before they softened when he looked at Harry.

“He’s an absolute arse,” Zayn said, kissing the corner of Harry’s mouth again before reaching for his sandwich to take the last bite. “Hate him.”

“You just stole my sandwich,” Harry pouted, taking a chip from Zayn’s plate.

“After all we’ve done, you’re coming after me for taking your sandwich.” Zayn shook his head in disbelief before opening his mouth and showing the half chewed food. “You want it back?”

Harry laughed, “Actually, yeah, maybe I do.”

Zayn swallowed quickly, “Come and get it.” He patted his belly and Harry rolled his eyes. He was in love with a bloody idiot.

Friday night, after an excuse about a lad’s night that his mum barely believed, Harry showed up on Zayn’s doorstep.

“Bonjour, mon amour,” Zayn said as soon as he answered.

“Is that French?” Harry kissed him as he came inside.

“Proper romantic, eh?”

“Stop putting so much pressure on me, I won’t be able to get it up,” Harry laughed, setting his backpack on the entry table.

Zayn grabbed him from behind, one arm over his chest, the other around his waist. “Highly doubt that,” he whispered against the shell of Harry’s ear, his hand ghosting over the front of his jeans. Harry choked and flipped around in his arms, kissing Zayn with every nerve ending in his body set on fire.

They ate the chicken and rice Zayn made with wine Harry stole out of his mum’s cabinet at home. They talked about when Harry could come visit in Manchester, and how Louis had been assigned to be one of Zayn’s five flatmates. After, they barely made it Zayn’s room before they had stripped down to nothing with wandering hands and lasting kisses.

Zayn had a plan Harry hadn’t anticipated as he kissed every inch of Harry's naked body, pressed love bites along his hips and across his chest. Rutting together as he traced Harry’s star with his tongue, holding his wrists down on either side of his head. Zayn memorized Harry's mouth with his, swallowing each sound as it came even as he kept telling Harry to be as loud as he wanted. Harry gripped the sheets when Zayn went between his thighs, biting the insides of them and running his slight beard over the bites before flipping him over onto his stomach.

“Zayn, I can’t—“ Harry barely managed to speak when Zayn pulled him apart and traced his opening with his tongue, hands gripping his hips. Harry’s back arched when Zayn’s teeth circled his rim.

“S’okay, darling,” Zayn said against his skin, “Want you to come for me first like this. Want you loose and open, yeah?”

Harry tried to nod but the strings in his stomach were tightening to near bursting levels as Zayn held him open, blew cool air around his opening. Harry reached for his dick and pulled himself off with echoing groans, collapsing to his elbows as he came, Zayn kissing his arse and down the backs of his thighs. He helped him turn over with gentle hands, kissing the come off Harry’s stomach and feeding some to him with his tongue.

Zayn let him recover for a moment while he ran and brushed his teeth before coming back to kiss Harry, slowly against the mattress until his cock started to fatten up again.

“I love you,” Harry whispered, looking up at Zayn. His body felt like a melted puddle on Zayn’s sheets.

“Love you,” Zayn said looking him square in the eye. “Always love you.”

Maybe they’d gone about it all wrong, falling in love before their first kiss ever happened but it didn’t change it for Harry, he was absolutely, madly and ridiculously gone for Zayn Malik.

Zayn started opening him up with his fingers then, aided by his earlier tongue work. They’d gone that far before, Harry’s hips bucking when Zayn rubbed his prostate with two fingers.

“Please, Zayn,” Harry's head was head thrown back, begging for something he couldn't describe, “Please.”

“One more, love,” Zayn said grabbing for the lube. “Have to make sure I'm not gonna hurt you.”

“I trust you, Z. I trust you with my fucking life so I definitely trust you with my arse.” They both giggled at that but it didn’t stop Zayn from adding a third finger, leaning down to watch his hand move inside Harry as Harry’s eyes crossed at the very idea of what Zayn must have been seeing. “If you don’t get inside me—“ Zayn pressing up with his fingers cut off Harry’s empty threat.

"What, babes? What are you gonna to do?”

Harry shook his head, words suddenly gone, his body completely Zayn’s for the taking. Zayn knew, as he always seemed to know, leaning forward to kiss Harry, removing his hand to hold his face steady, as he did, swallowing Harry’s whimper at the loss of pressure. Zayn put the condom on and Harry helped him slick up, setting the bottle of lube next to Harry’s stomach if he needed more.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Zayn said again, lining up.

“Hey,” Harry grabbed Zayn’s hand to make him pause, “You are not going to hurt me. Even if you do, I’ll survive it and it won’t be on purpose and I won’t hate you. Okay?”

Zayn smiled slowly, “Okay. But m’gonna go slow, still.”

Harry nodded, eyes never leaving Zayn’s as he pressed inside of him, slowly but surely. “Stop,” he whispered when the stretch started to make him feel breakable. Zayn did, hands braced on either side of Harry, sweat rolling over his forehead. Zayn breathed out slowly, and Harry mirrored him before nodding. “More. S’good.”

Zayn nodded but went even slower, rubbing Harry’s stomach soothingly with one hand as he went. “Relax, love,” Zayn whispered. “You’re okay. I've got you.”

When Zayn bottomed out, his breath came out in a whoosh and Harry’s eyes fluttered shut at the full feeling. It hurt in a full kind of way but after a moment it was less pain and more of something he’d never felt, like a livewire connection. “That—yeah, okay. Good.” Harry stuttered and Zayn nodded, understanding him anyway. Zayn rolled his hips slowly and Harry gasped, the next thrust coming even easier.

“There you go,” Zayn said, hands curling in the sheets, “Push down on me, like that.” They found a rhythm after a stilted moment, Zayn leaning over Harry to kiss him, tug on his hair as he rolled forward again and again. Harry wrapped one of his legs around Zayn's waist to press him in even closer and Zayn smirked against his lips. “You like this, huh? I can feel your hands you know.”

Harry smiled right back against him, the heat radiating through his palms and onto Zayn's back. “Can’t wait to be inside _you_ , angel. Gonna show you how good this is.”

Zayn closed his eyes, hips working faster at Harry’s words, reaching between them for Harry’s cock, wet and angry red already. He pressed his lips to Harry’s neck, as Harry pushed his thumb up against Zayn’s blue heart on his hip, sweat and sticky heat rolling around them. Harry came with a groan, his body sending spasms of pleasure to his limbs as he squirmed on the bed. Zayn’s orgasm was enough to send the electricity haywire and the house into complete darkness, his moans pressed right into Harry’s skin.

“You think we’re always gonna cause power outages?” Harry asked when Zayn cleaned them off and they were curled together in the middle of the mattress with one candle on Zayn’s bedside table. “Because we’re definitely doing that again, and again, and again, so if you want to get your mind under control that would be ace.”

Zayn flicked his nipple for that one, kissing him slowly after as an apology. “It’s probably something I just have to get out of my system. Meaning we should definitely do that again, and again, and again, to practice.” He punctuated his words with kisses against Harry’s skin, like promises to keep.

Harry pulled out of Zayn’s neighborhood right as his family pulled in on Sunday, too busy watching the road to notice his car. His cheeks were perpetually red from his weekend with Zayn, his lips too, but he felt so loved up he could burst. Like he had every part of Zayn and Zayn had every part of him. When he got home, he grinned at a text from Zayn, _saf says my room smells awful... can’t think of why. love you anyway. xx._

The morning Zayn left for school, he left Harry's bed before sunrise only to come back through the front door a couple of hours later for a proper goodbye. Letting go in the driveway afterwards, Harry felt like pieces of him were breaking off. He told himself he wouldn't cry, wanted to be Zayn's rock, but when Zayn took a shaky breath against Harry's neck, he absolutely lost it blinking back tears and rubbing Zayn's back to distract himself. Zayn pulled back first, his own eyes shining as he held Harry's face between his hands and kissed him, both of them laughing against each other at the teary-eyed messes they had suddenly become.

The first few months that Zayn was away at school were the slow kind of torture Harry wouldn’t wish on anyone. He was alone for the first time since Primary, though Liam and Niall helped make up the gaps significantly. He started going for runs in the morning, alone, and he threw himself into writing, short stories and longer ones, the makings of a novel he’d love to write someday, as he dealt with a town where he didn’t belong--especially not alone.

In December, his morning run was made eventful by a falling tree limb. He sped up to get away from it, his hands heating up just from the few seconds of exertion. He liked to jog in the mornings as to not raise suspicion by blurring around the track. There was another branch that fell a few steps later and then a fire hydrant where the path used to be wide open so Harry stopped short, pulling out one of his ear buds, blood rushing in his ears. He looked around slowly, eyes going wide when he found Zayn across the street in a blue Manchester University jumper, hair pushed back from his face with a headband.

“You aren’t supposed to be here until next week,” Harry called across the street, trying to keep his voice steady. Seeing Zayn for the first time in three months, not on a video screen, had emotion welling up in his throat.

“Finals got out early,” he said, smiling slowly. “You gonna come over here or do we have to talk like this?”

Harry shrugged, “I really miss you, you know.” He crossed the street, fast and in a blur then, to be next to Zayn. He couldn't go for nonchalant much longer.

Zayn nodded, biting his lip as he pulled Harry against him. “I know. Fuck, I know.”

Zayn was only home for a two week winter break that first time before he had to leave again. Harry spent the last night before he had to go back in Zayn's bed, despite weary side eyes from their mums. After they’d made each other come, twice that night, they curled up together under the glow in the dark stars Harry knew so well and the moonlight coming in through the open window. Zayn slid his ring off his finger--the onyx one surrounded by stones--and put it in Harry’s hand.

“Look on the band,” he whispered. Harry held it up and under the moonlight to make out the ZJM engraved there. “Always with you even when I’m not. Okay?”

Harry nodded and slid it right onto his finger, turning over to press a kiss against Zayn’s neck, and rest his face right there. He fell asleep breathing in the smell of Zayn’s skin, their arms and legs twisted around each other, reluctant to let go once morning came.

He started visiting Zayn on the weekends up in Manchester that winter and into spring, Liam and Niall coming every once in awhile too. At first he felt like he stuck out of Zayn’s new life like a sore thumb, the new mates and schedule overwhelming to him. Zayn never let him feel that way for long, though. He introduced him around as, “Harry, I told you about him,” or just, “My boyfriend.” Harry’s secret favorites were when he met a stranger that immediately rolled their eyes and would say, “Finally. Zayn talks about you like you're royalty or summat.”

Harry had fallen in love with Manchester the first time he visited as a kid, but visiting Zayn at university only made it better. They spent lazy Sundays in Zayn’s dorm and snuck Harry into the local pubs until he turned eighteen and then they went right in. They smoked good weed and grinded in the back of clubs to dirty bass with wandering hands. Harry sucked Zayn off in a bathroom stall that first winter and he was giddy with it for the next month afterwards. Harry liked to wait outside Zayn's classes if he came early on a Friday, walk across campus like he belonged. Louis said the first twenty-four hours after Harry showed up for a visit were off limits unless someone wanted to find the happy couple half naked or tied to a bed.

“That was one time,” Zayn yelled as Harry gave him a piggyback ride into his room one night.

“That they caught us,” Harry added quietly, both of them laughing too hard to catch their breath.

They fought all the time that first year too, over the dumbest things they could imagine but it never lasted long. Harry would threaten not to come up the next weekend and then show up anyway or Zayn would take the train home and climb through Harry’s window early in the morning on a Saturday. They kept the promises they made and they never hurt each other.

“Just wanna be yours,” Harry said one night as Zayn wiped off the excess of ink of the dates he was inking on Harry’s collarbones with the gun they’d bought years ago. It was one of those weekends that seemed to be going too fast, where Sunday morning and Harry's bus ride back seemed too close. One of those weekends they stayed in just to be with each other, just to make permanent marks and talk about nothing that mattered.

“You are mine,” Zayn laughed, kissing Harry’s neck and sitting back on his heels to admire his work.

“I want something forever,” Harry said, eyes on the tattoo gun. He was tipsy from their dinner at a brewery near campus, lips warm where he pressed them together.

“My name on your forehead?” Zayn made the gun buzz and Harry laughed.

“Possibly. I want something only we know.”

“Because three matching tattoos and superpowers aren’t enough? Your lips forever on my body aren’t cutting it for you anymore?”

Harry shook his head, smiling. “Something else.”

“You already wear my ring, babe,” Zayn said.

Harry knew then what he wanted and explained to Zayn, taking off his ring and showing off his finger. As usual, Zayn found it hard to say no, doing the tattoo in less than a few minutes--A dashed ring with a ZM on the underside of his finger.

“Might fade eventually,” Zayn said as he cleaned it after, Harry just nodded. He didn’t care, just wanted something to get him through a few more months.

The next morning Harry collected his things in his backpack, looking at his ring finger. “Zayn?”

Zayn was already typing a paper at his desk; dark glasses perched on his nose. “Yeah, babes?”

“Remember when my mum said nothing below the wrist?” He held his hand up. His mum had let the cross slide but he didn’t know if he would get lucky twice.

Zayn spun around in his chair, “Oh, now you think of it.”

Harry smiled sheepishly, “Oops.”

“C’mere.”

Harry went easily, falling into Zayn’s lap and looking at the ink. He loved it, he just wasn’t sure his mum would feel the same. Zayn grabbed his hand and studied it too. He took the onyx ring off of Harry’s pointer finger, and slid it over the inked version. “There. Now you’re mine times two.” Harry tugged Zayn back by his hair to kiss him, pouring everything he could right through his lips. He knew, as maybe he'd always known, this was it--Zayn was it.

Six months later, Harry moved to Manchester and into a flat with Liam and Niall. Zayn and Louis were waiting on the doorstep when they got there and, for Harry, it felt like he was starting the rest of his life.

Courses were hard that first year but Harry didn’t mind—as always, he liked the challenge. He liked studying Literature and writing his essays in coffee shops. He loved meeting Zayn in the library to revise and then making each other dinner at either of their flats. He liked the way they could stroll around hand in hand and kiss on street corners. He loved that no one knew who they were, and no one cared if they did. Zayn could still push things out of their way or save Harry’s drink from falling off the table and Harry could run home if he forgot a book or get milk from the shops if they were cooking and ran out—but they were nobody in Manchester. They were just Harry and Zayn, covered in tattoos and wrapped in each other.

The next three years, Harry had a job at the library while Zayn worked at an art gallery off campus. They spent the free time they had with each other even if it was just a nap on Tuesday afternoons between their courses. They felt more comfortable together than when they were apart, though they learned to be perfectly fine separating when they needed to.

Harry was more of a social butterfly at night while Zayn would rather stay at his flat and smoke a joint with Louis or play Xbox with Liam. He didn't stop Harry from going out and Harry had some of the best times at pub nights with his co-workers but he always came home to Zayn. Even the nights he came home sloppy drunk, Zayn would take care of him, pushing him into the shower before dragging him to bed with bottles of water within reaching distance when he woke up with a massive hangover. Harry did the same for Zayn, though it was mostly going to pick him up from random parties because he had fallen asleep on someone's couch or got lost and couldn't figure out how to get home. Harry didn't mind those nights either, when he would run to the address Zayn sent him and then call Zayn the second he was outside. He would come out of wherever it was with his eyes shining when he saw Harry, wrapping himself around him and kissing him silly in the middle of the street. 

They had favorite coffee shops and bakeries, happy hours and pubs they loved the most. They kept adding colors to their hair, washing out the dye before starting again. Zayn took Harry with him when he got his nose pierced, and held Harry's hand when he got his ear pierced that same day--a diamond stud to match all four of Zayn's that he took out two months later as he let the hole close. They perfected cooking on a budget and blowing their money on the tattoos Zayn couldn't do with his gun. They went home every once in awhile but never stayed more than a couple of days--the town felt as suffocating as it had when they were teenagers and every time they went back to Manchester it was with the promise they would never trap themselves anywhere ever again.

They managed to coordinate costumes on Halloween each year, mostly as superheros but once as footballers another time as Miley Cyrus and Batman for no apparent reason. In Zayn's third year he went as Scarlet Witch while Harry went as her twin brother Quicksilver in one of their more comically ironic attempts at costumes.

"Is it funny if we're the only ones who get it?" Harry groaned as Zayn grabbed a handful of his spandex covered arse before they went out.

"News flash, love--we're _always_ the only ones who get it." Zayn smirked, pushing Harry's hair off his neck, to suck a deep red mark against his skin, "You better not take this off before I get the chance to, by the way."

They were effortless and easy together in a way Harry had only read about in books. They still fought--yelled and pushed each others buttons in the worst ways. Harry was the king of passive aggressive remarks while Zayn made a name for himself and his ability to freeze Harry out rather than work things through. The phrase, "bad communication," quickly became a staple in their relationship. They pushed buttons in the best ways too, experimenting with sex toys and lingerie, positions they found on outdated Cosmo magazines in the dentist's office. They were never bored with each others bodies, and willing to try everything at least once. Zayn bought Harry a vibrator for his twenty-second birthday and used it on him until Harry was writhing around on the sheets, slick with sweat and threatening to cut Zayn's balls off, if he didn't let him come.

The biggest disaster by far was the weekend Niall helped Zayn move into a new flat and then called Harry and told him he needed to have a serious conversation while Zayn wasn't home. Harry came over as fast as he could, and then had to wait a few minutes before he knocked on the door to not raise suspicion. Niall had sent Zayn on an errand, evidently, while he sat Harry down on the couch, his face deadly serious. Harry felt like he was in the headmaster's office at school.

"I just thought you deserved to know," Niall said quietly, producing a green box Harry recognized right away. Niall set it in his lap and Harry was forced to open the box of lace panties he'd given Zayn a couple of weekends before, kind of as a joke, a box Niall had automatically assumed belong to some girl and not Zayn. "I'm so sorry, Haz," Niall whispered as Zayn walked back in, his hair pulled up in a topknot, eyebrows pulled together.

"What the fuck was that about?" Zayn asked as Niall walked past him with a dirty look. "Oh fuck," he said as soon as he noticed the box in Harry's lap.

"Well, babes, Niall thinks you're cheating on me. Anything else you didn't think to hide before you let him in your room?"

Zayn's face went pale as he ran for his room and Harry blanched, thinking of all the things that could scar Niall for life. Zayn was supposed to be the responsible one. He came back to Harry a second later, laughing with his eyes squeezed shut, "You should have seen your face, love." He went so far to wipe a tear from his eye as Harry shook his head, his mouth dropped wide open.

"I was going to help you explain this to Niall," Harry picked up the multi colored lace pile in his lap, "But now you're on your own."

"Really?" Zayn smirked as he pulled up his jumper and pushed his jeans down slightly, exposing the line of  purple lace just below his waistline. "Even after I wore these ones just for you?" He batted his eyelashes and Harry was gone before he'd even tried to stop it, "They're purple like your star." Harry was never happier for his speed than right then, flashing across the room to push Zayn up against the wall, kissing him so hard his head fell back against the wall.

Sometimes they got odd looks when they said how long they’d been together. Like, they were doing it wrong or settling for something easy. “We just knew,” they would say. Simple as that, no questions asked.

Being together was easy but everything else wasn’t always so simple. It was hard to cover rent when they moved in together for Harry’s final year of school, just the two of them. The shower never seemed to get warm in that flat and Harry usually forgot to pick up half the things they needed when he did the shopping. They tried to save money to move to London after Harry’s graduation but then they'd be set back when Zayn’s car needed a repair or the time Harry’s wallet got stolen at a pub, every credit card maxed, his checking account cleared out by the time he realized it was gone. But when it was good, it was everything they had hoped for. They looked for flats in London, curled up in bed with cups of tea the spring before Harry's graduation, imagining what it would be like to be there, to be together in the city they'd always dreamed of.

Louis and Liam moved to London right after Liam graduated while Harry and Zayn stayed in Manchester for one last summer. Especially after Zayn got offered to show his work at the gallery where he worked for a couple of months towards the beginning of fall. Harry stood in the center of the room on the opening night, grinning with a glass of red wine in his hand, taking pictures to send to Zayn’s mum since she couldn’t make it. He'd never felt as proud as he did that night watching people fawn over Zayn and his work--people seeing the things in him Harry had seen all along.

Niall moved to London on a whim, split the cost of a moving van with them a few months later. Harry and Zayn moved into a flat they found online that was too small but located in a neighborhood they didn’t have to worry about. It had a working sink, and a shower that never ran too cold. They hung Zayn’s art on the walls and Harry started a potted plant garden on the back balcony. They shared a closet and their clothes got mixed up so they didn’t even know what was theirs anymore--they didn't care. They drank cheap wine and ate a lot of takeaway, explored the meaning of cheap fun and held on tight to each other.

Zayn stopped putting colors in his hair when he got a job as the curator of an art gallery on the west side. Harry followed a couple of months later when he landed a job at lifestyle magazine as a writer and a year later as an editor for the travel section. 

“Do you ever wonder how we got so lucky?” Harry asked, a year after they’d moved to London, his feet in Zayn’s lap on the couch.

“Been questioning that since some kid with big green eyes showed up next to me on a big yellow slide when I was nine,” Zayn replied, refilling his glass with the expensive wine Harry brought home to celebrate his promotion.

Harry laughed against the edge of his glass, “Some kid, eh?”

“He turned out to be alright,” Zayn shrugged. “A bit of a freak but alright.”

“Hey, Zayn, you know what they say about freaks?” Harry wiggled his toes, his fuzzy socks brushing Zayn’s arm.

“Two is better than one,” Zayn recited.

Harry giggled, “So, two freaks together are better than one all on his own.”

“Better stick together, then,” Zayn said, rearranging so he could lay over Harry, their heartbeats aligning in their chests.

“Yeah, we better," Harry whispered right against his lips.

*~

The strangers that end up sitting next to Harry on the plane are a couple of businessmen who seem to have no interest in talking to him. He doesn’t mind. He puts his headphones in and plays the first song listed, doesn’t really hear it though, too distracted by his own thoughts.

“We’ll be preparing for take off in a moment. Please stow your luggage and turn off your electronic devices or transfer them to Airplane mode,” the flight attendant says over the intercom.

Harry gives it a few more minutes, still debating texting his mum. He always sends two texts before he flies alone, has done for the last ten years, at least. Today he hasn’t sent either one. He sees visions of fiery crashes and missing passengers. Maybe this is what he gets for being a stubborn asshole, for sticking to his guns when he shouldn’t have. For letting his mouth hijack his brain. For being too proud to say he’s sorry. For doubting everything he’s ever known, ever loved. He rests his forehead against the window as the last few passengers settle down in their seats.

He wishes he didn’t know how it had gotten to this point; he wishes it wasn’t his fault. He wishes it could be another Sunday morning in bed with the promise of tea and cuddles not a Sunday afternoon sat in an airplane surrounded by strangers with absolutely no plans. He wishes he had kept his mouth shut.

*~

Harry was the last one to get to the pub, coming straight from work with a semi-permanent grin on his face. He made his way to the back booth where they always sat, spotting his four best friends easily, and a round of pints already on the table.

“Sorry, I’m late,” Harry said around the table, sliding in on Zayn’s side of the booth and kissing him. “Hi, love,” he added quieter.

Zayn slid him a pint and put his hand on his leg under the table, fingers curling on the inside of his thigh, squeezing once. Harry had called him before he left to tell him the news but he hadn’t seen him in person yet.

“Okay, what is it?” Niall leaned forward, a straw folded in an intricate design falling from his fingers.

“What’s what?” Harry tried not to smile and Zayn ran his hand up and down the seam of his pants again.

“Oh, fuckin’ spit it out, Harold,” Louis said, taking a sip from his glass. “Zayn’s been on the verge of busting a nut since he walked in, now you’re here acting like your pregnant. What’s up?”

Zayn laughed and glanced at Harry, “I was excited and I’m not a good liar.”

“Me too and me neither,” Harry said, smiling and kissing him again. Liam made a gagging sound from across the table, Harry was too excited to be bothered. “Okay, so the magazine wants to do a travel series,” Harry started. “We usually do freelancers but this time we want something authentic, a person who hasn’t done it before going out and traveling, writing about the experience." He looked around and everyone nodded along, Zayn looking down at the table, biting down on his lip to keep from smiling. “It’s fully funded and salaried,” Harry added, “And we were in the process of figuring out who should go.”

“It’s you isn’t it?” Niall asked. “If it’s not, this is a shit story.”

“It’s him,” Zayn answered before Harry could, grabbing his hand in his own. Four years at the magazine had put Harry in a position to choose his assignments and that was one he wouldn’t let pass him by.

“No fucking way.” Louis leaned across the table to hug him as Niall started whistling and Liam refilled everyone’s glasses with the pitcher from the center of the table.

Harry nodded, “Yeah. I have three months to get it done, and Zayn is going to come on some of the trips to scout art for the gallery." He looked over at him, eyes sparkling, "Not to be dramatic but it's literally the best thing to ever happen."

Zayn leaned into him, pressing a kiss to his shoulder through his dress shirt. “So proud of you,” he whispered against his ear. Harry squeezed his hand as he took a sip of beer. They still needed to figure out all of the details to make it work but they'd promised to celebrate first.

“Anyone else have something that can beat that?” Liam asked, looking around.

“I feel like now might be the time we give up the pissing contest and just take shots,” Niall said with a grin.

So that’s what they did. Round after round of shots at the table, pints lined up one after the other, orders of nachos and wings spread out—a proper celebration. Around one, Niall was across the bar flirting with a blonde, and Louis and Zayn were sneaking out for a cigarette.

“I love you,” Zayn said, holding Harry’s face against his and kissing him until he was gasping for breath. “So fucking proud of you, babes.” He gave him one more kiss before Louis was pulling him backwards and towards the front doors.

Harry was drunk, his eyes heavy lidded and lips numb but he was so happy. The kind of happy that felt like he could float away, madly in love with his friends, with his job, with his Zayn--that kind of happy. “I’m so fucking happy,” he said out loud turning to Liam then.

Liam laughed, his eyes squinting as he wrapped his arm around Harry’s shoulders. “Wanna know something weird?” He asked.

“Of course,” Harry said, taking another sip from the pint in front of him. It may have been Niall’s.

“I’ve only ever been with Louis, like _everything_ only with him.”

“Yeah? Same with me,” Harry said. "With Zayn, I mean. Not Louis." He laughed at himself running his hand back through his hair. 

“But I wasn’t _his_ first,” Liam said. “He was just mine.”

“Okay,” Harry said slowly, wondering where this was going. “You guys have been together since you were sixteen, though. There wasn’t much of a chance to go somewhere else.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Liam pursed his lips, “I guess sometimes I wonder. Not in a way where I would ever leave or cheat but just—someone else has seen him in that way. Don’t you think about that?”

Harry shook his head quickly; Zayn had already dissected his short lived experiences with that girlfriend from when he was sixteen. “Not really. She got him once or twice, I get him always.”

Liam nodded, took another drink from his glass. “I just—Lou is pissing me off lately, keeps asking me if I’m sure about him, about us.”

Harry bit his lip, the lingering proposal Louis had told Zayn about, in confidence, which meant Harry knew, floating to the top of his mind.

Liam sighed, “How do you know you’ve found the one you’re supposed to be with, if you’ve never had anything else?”

Harry’s eyebrows pulled together—maybe he had a point but, on the flip side, how would Liam live knowing he’d given up Louis to try to double check that Louis was the right person when it was perfect all along.

Before he could say that to him, ease his mind for the time being, and warn Louis for throwing him offfrom finding out about the proposal a little _too much_ , Zayn was back in the booth wrapped around Harry and kissing his neck, whispering against his ear. “Need to get you home,” he said. “Need you naked, in our bed, like an hour ago.”

Harry turned to him, kissing the corner of his lips, he smelled like smoke, beer, and his cologne with a little bit of Harry’s mixed in with it. “Yeah, let’s go.”

“Really?” Zayn pulled back. “Thought I’d have to drag you out of here by your hair.”

Harry laughed at that, his head thrown back, happiness radiating straight off of him. “I’d follow you anywhere, you know.”

They got back to their flat half an hour later after sufficiently scaring their cab driver when Harry sat in Zayn’s lap and Zayn’s hands wandered down the back of his pants.Their laughter was breathless in the stairwell as they chased each other up to the third floor like they were twenty again. Zayn tried to unlock the door with Harry pasted against his back, undoing Zayn's belt while watching over his shoulder. Harry’s pants already undone from the cab ride. Harry kicked the door shut behind them, pulling Zayn up so his legs wrapped around his waist. They found each other’s lips as Harry navigated towards their bedroom. He ran them into two walls on the way to the bed, finally making it there and falling back with Zayn on top of him. Zayn kissed over the trail of buttons as he undid Harry's shirt, traced the gentle lines of Harry’s stomach and rubbed his thumbs over his hips.

“You now,” Harry said as he wiggled to kick off his pants.

Zayn pulled off his shirt and dress pants before climbing back on Harry. “Want you up on your knees, yeah?” Zayn kissed along his jaw, sucked a mark under his ear. Harry nodded flipping over when Zayn leaned over to their side table for lube and a condom. They didn’t use condoms always—not anymore. But when it was late and they knew they wouldn’t want to take the time to clean up, they did. Zayn opened Harry up with quick fingers, his lips up and down his spine in a way that had Harry grinding down hard against the mattress.

“I’m good, I’m good,” Harry said, wanting that slight burn more than anything.

“Such a cute arse,” Zayn said withdrawing his hand. He brought his hand down on the meat of Harry’s arse making Harry rut against the mattress again, gripping the bottom sheet in his fists. “It’s distracting, really,” Zayn said with one more slap.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” Harry laughed as he heard the foil packet rip open.

“Apology accepted,” Zayn smirked, his fingers scratching lightly over Harry’s back. “You ready, love?”

Harry nodded, keening when Zayn grabbed his hair as slid inside of him, one hand holding around his hips. Their bodies moved together seamlessly, Harry pushing back on Zayn and meeting his hips, Zayn pressing them as close together as possible. He pulled Harry up to knees so his back was pressed to Zayn's front, biting the back of his neck when Harry cried out.

“You okay?” Zayn asked, pausing his movement. His arm was wrapped around Harry's waist and Harry grabbed onto his arm, made sure he could feel the heat of his hands.

Harry’s head fell back on his shoulder, the angle almost too good to bear. “It’s—like, yeah. Perfect,” he babbled.

“Good,” Zayn said, scratching over Harry’s belly as he thrust his hips forward again and again.

Harry turned his face to Zayn’s neck, biting down when Zayn came inside him, a low sound echoing in their room. Zayn fell backwards taking Harry with him, Harry's cock painfully hard. He was confused for a moment as Zayn kicked his legs around until his heels were hooked on Harry's knees, pressing them down. He realized Zayn was holding his legs apart with his own, holding Harry down across his shoulders so he couldn't move as he wrapped his hand around his cock.

“Oh fuck,” Harry gasped, the restriction mixed with the safety of Zayn’s arms almost too much.

“I got you, baby,” Zayn whispered in his ear. “Just come for me, I got you.”

Harry felt suspended by a string, the only focus right on the heated flames in his lower belly as they collected together, his balls seizing up tight to his body. Zayn pressed down on his stomach lightly and Harry drew in a shaky breath. It was like Zayn knew what he wanted before he did, drove his body to the edge and then right over. His muscles were shaking as Zayn twisted his fist, pressing Harry’s legs further apart with his heels.

“Fuck, Zayn,” Harry was near tears, the pleasure building without releasing, “Fuck.”

“I got you,” Zayn repeated against his ear, “Just come for me, yeah? Show me how pretty you are when you come.”

Something about Zayn’s breath on his ear or the press of his thumb over his slit had his body writhing as he came, dick twitching even in the aftershock as he tried to catch his breath. Zayn got out from under him and crawled right on top, smoothing his hair back out his eyes.

“You okay, babe?” He thumbed under his eyes were a few tears had slipped.

“So good,” Harry said right away, smiling softly. His orgasm had pushed the excitement right out of him, leaving him sated and sleepy. “I fucking love you, by the way.”

Zayn kissed him slowly, drawing his tongue into his mouth before pulling away. “Love you, angel.”

Harry got up to clean himself off and throw away Zayn’s condom stretching in front of the mirror. He pulled on a pair of boxers and sleep pants since body heat wasn’t enough on it’s own to keep them warm during October in London.

“Are you getting the big blanket?” Zayn asked changing the bottom sheet on the bed.

Harry nodded, grabbing out the big multi-colored quilt from the chest under the window. They typically used it later in November but the chill had come early. He spread it out over the freshly made bed, pulling his hair into a bun after.

“Liam was saying something kind of weird tonight,” Harry said walking towards their bathroom with Zayn following. “I think Louis is scaring him trying to hide the proposal from him.”

“What was he saying?” Zayn danced his fingertips along Harry’s back as he moved around him to grab his toothbrush.

“Basically, like, not in a bad way, but I think he might be jealous Louis was with someone else before him. Louis was his first but Liam wasn’t Louis’. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah but it’s stupid,” Zayn said, getting the toothpaste out of his drawer. “Who cares about something that happened so long ago?”

“I know--that’s what I told him.” Harry had floss in his mouth but he knew Zayn had understood him. “I could see his point in a way,” he said throwing away the string in the trash bin next the wall.

Zayn spit and spoke around his toothbrush, “How?”

“I mean, you were with someone else too, before me. At the time I was madly jealous and now I don’t care. But, still, you’ve had someone else, spent intimate moments with someone else and I haven’t.” He shrugged, squeezing toothpaste on his toothbrush.

“What does that mean?” Zayn turned towards him, eyebrows raised.

“Nothing,” Harry said, toothbrush lodged between his lips. He held up one finger as he spit, wiping the back of his mouth. “Like, it’s weird if you think about it long enough, yeah? You have all of me and I only have basically all of you.”

“Basically all of me?” Zayn’s voice went harder as he put his toothbrush in the holder and he wiped his mouth, “Where are you going with this?”

“Nowhere,” Harry said, not recognizing the runaway train he was setting into motion. “He just brought up that maybe you can’t know you’ve found The One if you’ve never had anyone else.”

Zayn turned off the water and left the bathroom, Harry was still standing in front of the counter. He rolled his eyes and put the toothbrush down, “Are you mad?” he called.

“Am I mad that you pretty much just said you don’t know if we’re supposed to be together because I’m the only one who has ever fucked you? I don’t know Harry, would that make you mad?”

Harry put his hands on his hips coming out of the bathroom and into their bedroom, “Zayn. That’s not what I said.”

“Isn’t it though?” Zayn pulled on his joggers and a hoodie lying on the floor. It was Harry’s. He didn’t mention it. “What if I told you, I needed to try out some more people to know if we should be together? You’re the only guy I’ve been with, how do I know if maybe I like all cock in general not just yours specifically?”

It was like a slap and Harry took a step away from Zayn, his back hitting the door frame. “Are you kidding me?”

“Are you?” Zayn challenged. “It sounds to me that you and Liam were coming up with all sorts of ideas about what it means to be in love and maybe you’re onto something there.”

Harry knew Zayn was mad, he’d seen it before. He knew what to say to back track so they could apologize and go to bed. But he knew what to say to push him forward. Later, he wouldn’t know what made him choose the latter.

“Maybe you’re right,” he bit back. “Maybe we have to try other people like fucking flavors at an ice cream shop to know who we belong to.”

“Is that a suggestion?” Zayn asked, voice challenging and jaw in a dangerous line.

“Sure,” Harry threw his arms out to the side, ran the train right off the tracks with one word.

“Fuck you, Harry.” Zayn shook his head, anger seeping into his words, “Fuck you.”

“Not anymore,” Harry yelled. “Let’s go explore, Zayn. You go out and find out if you actually like cock, or just mine, and I’ll go figure out what it means to be in love because evidently I don’t fucking know.”

“Great timing,” Zayn clapped his hands together. “You go write your fucking travel blog and fuck your way across the world, then. Okay?”

Harry rolled his eyes at the intentional patronization of his tone, Zayn knew exactly what he was doing too. That was the thing—they knew everything about each other, they knew exactly how to push the other off the edge in every way. “Maybe we’ve gotten too fucking comfortable,” Harry yelled grabbing his worn brown bag out of the closest. “Maybe it was easy so we kept it, never challenged it. Fell into this and never got out. Just because you had a blue heart and I had a purple star doesn’t mean we belong together."

Zayn walked past him and out of the bedroom, “You’re a fucking asshole, Harry.”

“I’m learning from the best, Zayn,” Harry yelled right back, yanking things out of drawers and throwing them in bag--socks, a blue jumper off the ground, his phone charger and inhaler.Tears threatened to spill and when he looked at their bottles of cologne lined up next to each other on the dresser, the big quilt spread out on their bed, the pictures of them at graduation, Zayn’s and then Harry’s, on the wall, he lost it completely. He ran into the bathroom, a sob tearing through his chest at the mess he’d made.

“Zayn,” he screamed when he came out to the hallway. He wanted Zayn to come fight with him, he wanted Zayn to tell him he was being an idiot.

Zayn stalked back into the room, face hard, “Go Harry. Fucking get out of here but when you come back from looking for yourself and the soul mate you've evidently been missing, don't expect me to be waiting around.” He turned on his heel and left, the front door slamming shut a moment later.

Another sob worked its way up but this time Harry pushed it down, swallowing hard. There it was--the train had crashed and then the rubble lay around him, burning under his feet. The sun was barely rising out the window, peeking over the horizon. Harry clenched his jaw and changed into jeans and boots, wiped his nose on his sleeve. He grabbed his bag and went out the same way Zayn just had. If Zayn wanted him gone, he’d show him gone. At the last minute he grabbed his passport off the counter and slammed the door behind him, even though no one was left to hear it.

~*

“This is your last warning, please turn off your electronics or switch to Airplane mode,” the flight attendant says one more time.

Harry pauses his music and goes to unlock his phone to change it. He decides he’ll text Gemma—tell her he’s flying. If the plane goes down, at the very least, someone will know he was in the air in the first place. It’s going to be a headache when he lands though. He pushes in his password, ignores the forty-six text messages, the thirty-three missed calls. What he can’t ignore is the picture that is his screen saver, the one he organized his apps around so he could see it clearly every time.

They were twenty-two and twenty-three in the picture—taken in London four years ago, lying in their bed after the first night in their flat. Zayn’s eyes are closed and Harry’s hair is sticking up in every direction, the morning light bright around their puffy faces. Harry still doesn’t know why they had taken it just that every time he sees it, he remembers how happy they were that morning. How stupidly giddy they were over absolutely nothing other than being together.

“What am I doing?” He pulls out his headphones and realizes he’s spoken out loud. “What the fuck am I doing?”

“Uh,” the man next to him looks over, “We’re flying to Spain.”

Harry shakes his head, “No. No I’m not.” He gets out of his seat and into the aisle, much to the abrupt surprise of the men in his row.

“You need to sit down,” a lady in the row behind him says. “We’re about to take off.”

“No, we’re not. Or, you are. I’m not.” He yanks his bag out of the overhead compartment, Zayn’s sweatshirt clutched in his hands.

“Sir, excuse me.” The flight attendant jumps in front of him at the end of the aisle, “We’re getting ready to leave, you can’t get off.”

Harry shakes his head, “Sorry, I’ll be quick. There’s been a mistake and I shouldn’t be here.”

“Do you have a ticket?”

“Yes,” he says slowly.

“And a passport?”

“Yeah but that’s not the point—“

“Great. You’re exactly where you should be, sweetie.”

Harry shakes his head, “No. I need to get off this plane. Listen, I messed up with something, okay? I need to fix it and not fly out of the country before I do. So, I need off the plane.” He adjusts his bag higher on his shoulder, tries to take a step towards the open door. "Please."

She matches his steps, “Sir, you cannot get off the plane. This is not a TV show or a movie, this a security matter.”

Harry sighs, “Okay. My apologies.” He takes a step back like he’s turning around. He once said he’d only use his powers for good and as he dives around the flight attendant and dashes across the tarmac, so fast he blurs, he can’t help but think this might be the kind of cause he had never considered.

He grabs a cab when he runs out of breath in midtown and then tumbles out of it while it’s still running in front of their flat. Harry throws cash over the seat before he takes the stairs two at a time up to their door. It’s been almost twelve hours since he left, but it feels like it’s been a week.

“Zayn,” he calls as soon as he gets to the top of the stairs. He knocks on the door because he left without his keys, hadn’t planned on coming back. He knocks over and over until on of their neighbors sticks her head out the door, rolls her eyes, and shuts it again. “Zayn!” He yells with his lips pressed to the wood of the door, “Babe, please let me in. Okay? I’m the idiot here but I love you and—“

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Harry’s hand is still in the air when he comes face to face with Louis.

“Nothing is wrong with me,” Harry says as he pushes inside his own flat, letting his bag fall to the ground. “Is he here?' He calls out, "Zayn?”

Liam is on the couch with Niall next to him, Louis is standing in front of the closed door to their bedroom. They all have dark circles under their eyes but not nearly as dark as Harry’s and he feels a flash of irritation. “Is he in there?” Harry takes a step toward Louis. “Is he in our bedroom, Lou? In _our_ flat? You can’t keep me out.”

“Yes, I can,” Louis says, voice even. “If you’re going to hurt each other, I’m going to stand right fucking here—“

“Haz?”

Harry swears on everything his heart skips a beat when he hears him. “Zayn, tell Louis to let me in there, please. I need to talk to you.” His voice is fragile and cracked to his ears--he swallows to try to fix it.

“Just let him in, Lou.” He sounds tired even through the door.

“He was napping,” Louis takes a step away, a warning in his eyes. Harry ignores it, opening the door and shutting it quickly behind him.

Zayn is still in the sweats and hoodie he was in that morning, his hair sticking up on one side. Harry’s heart swells when he sees that the only part of the quilt messed up is the one his side of the bed--that Zayn must have fallen asleep on Harry's pillow. It’s a tiny glimmer of hope but it’s there. Harry takes it.

“Hi,” he says.

Zayn nods, arms crossed with the bed between them.

“I was at the airport. Um, I was going to go to Spain.”

Zayn scoffs, “I wouldn’t know. You didn’t answer your phone.”

Harry doesn’t remind him that Zayn was the one who told him to leave, he doesn’t want this to be broken anymore. “I was on the plane but I got off.”

“Clearly.”

There’s shuffling in the hallway and the front door shuts a moment later. Harry knows even with their bedroom door closed, they’re alone now.

“I just—“ Harry takes a deep breath and shakes his head, his hands are still warm from running off the airplane, shaking because, for the first time, he’s barely holding onto something he never thought he’d lose. “Maybe we’ve never tried anything else because we don’t have to. We’ve always said this it--end game, end of story, everything—and it is. We didn’t fall into this and get stuck. We got swept away and never wanted out. I still don’t want out. Never will. You know, I’ve spent the last twelve hours thinking about that freckle on your eye and the fact you left this morning without a jacket and I’m the one who reminds you to grab an extra one, the one who tells you your superpower isn’t being hot, you still need to wear a jacket.”

Zayn is studying the quilt on the bed, not meeting his eyes, and Harry can hardly blame him.

“I didn’t bring a toothbrush in my bag because I always share yours when we go anywhere. Which is disgusting, really. But it’s us. And I almost cried over a bag of gummy bears today because it reminded me of you, and every time we’ve eaten them and how you always hoard the red ones but I make you share.” Harry has to take another steadying breath. “And I had to take your ring off at the airport because of security and they basically had to lube my finger to get it off in the first place only to find out I have to same thing tattooed underneath—a ring over a ring—and fuck, that’s not the point. The point is I’m yours forever times two and your mine just the same and I don’t care if you’re the only one I’ve been with and I don’t care that being with you is as easy as breathing. Because when you know, you just know. And I know, Zayn, I know it’s you. For me, it’s you, it’s us. Always us."

The silence lingers but Zayn looks up to meet Harry’s eyes. “You know what I’ve been thinking about?”

Harry shakes his head, “No.” It comes out as a cracked whisper.

“I’ve been thinking how I could make it so you couldn’t leave London, so your flight was delayed, or your passport was denied. I can make pictures fall off walls and phones ring out of nowhere but I had no idea how to change your mind.”

“It never changed,” Harry says, “I shouldn’t have even questioned this. Ever. That’s on me. I love you Zayn, I have since you gave me that copy of Harry Potter, I probably will when we’re old and senile too.”

“Well, good.” Zayn says, swallowing. “Because I went to Tesco earlier to get gummy bears and I got peanut M&Ms instead because you say the peanut is healthy for you, so it’s not technically candy. And a lady’s purse almost spilled but I stopped it from across the store. I turned around to tell you, to make you proud, but you weren’t there. And I hated it. Maybe I don’t know if I like cock or just yours,” he winces at his words and Harry does too, “But since when does that matter? I love you for all that you are, the running fast and being clumsy, the fact you can’t tell a lie to save your life, and maybe your dick is on the list but that’s not—that’s so not the point. I love your eyes and the way you hold my hand, I love the very concept that you would go so far as to book a flight to Spain and get on the actual plane to prove a point, a stupid point but a point all the same.”

Harry has a knot in his throat but he nods. “Are you gonna come over here or what?”

Zayn smiles a little at that, walks around the edge of the bed until he stands in front of Harry. “Those were the scariest twelve hours of my life, you know. I am so, so mad at you but the thought of you leaving me,” he shakes his head to cut himself off.

Harry’s not sure he wants to know, can’t bear the hurt in Zayn’s eyes in the first place. He pulls him in as close as he can, until their chests are pressed together and Zayn’s face is pressed right against his neck. He waits until Zayn moves his face up to meet Harry’s gaze before he kisses him, slow and gentle, drawing him in closer with his tongue while his hands press to his back making Zayn’s eyes flutter closed.

"Can we lay down?” Zayn whispers against Harry’s jaw and he nods. Now that he’s home, holding Zayn he just wants to get under the big quilt, the one they usually only need in November, and never leave. They strip down like they had that morning, down to just flannel sleep pants for warmth as they slip into their bed, pressed so tightly in the middle, most of the mattress isn’t being used at all.

“Hey Zayn,” Harry whispers, running his hands back through Zayn’s hair, “Weird always finds weird, you know. Just the way the world works.”

Zayn lifts his head from Harry’s chest back to look at him, kisses him slowly once before he says, “I do know. Even if we get lost a couple of times along the way.”

“Yeah?” Harry smirks, as Zayn puts his head back down, his eyelashes fluttering against his chest, “Where’d you hear that?”

“Some idiot told me when I was a kid.”

“I’m glad we found each other, then,” Harry says quietly, years of memories catching with his breath right in his chest.

Zayn doesn’t say the next part, doesn’t have to. He just moves his hand up to hold on to Harry’s over his stomach, thumb over the black onyx ring and inked lines underneath, over their promise of being together forever times two.

*~

“Do you ever feel like we’re cheating?” Zayn asked, laying his head back on the headrest to look at Harry in the driver’s seat. They were driving from home after they’d gone to see their families for Harry’s twenty-third birthday dinner.

“Cheating what?” Harry grabbed his hand and held it on top the center console.

“People search their whole lives for their forever and some people never find it.” Zayn traced Harry’s knuckles with his thumb, “Yet here we are, twenty-three and twenty-four, and we found it. This is it.”

“This is it,” Harry repeated.

“End game,” Zayn said back, a smile pulling at his lips

“End of story.” Harry agreed, squeezing his hand, “I don't think it's cheating, I think it's fate."

“Can’t imagine a life without you anyway,” Zayn said, lifting their hands to kiss Harry’s.

Harry pulled out onto the motorway, a silly grin splitting his face. “Would be unbearable without you too,” he said. “Wouldn’t have as many tattoos for one. That’s for sure.”

“Would still wear jeans that are too tight and tell jokes that only I laugh at,” Zayn said.

“Excuse me?” Harry’s eyes went wide as he looked over towards Zayn.

“That’s true in every universe, ever. Even the one’s where you’re a cat and not a person.” Zayn laughed, his head thrown back, the light sound filling up the car.

“Well, you’re stuck with me in every one of those universes, I'll have you know,” Harry said, voice confident.

“You think we find each other in every universe, then?” Zayn’s lips twitched, his hand going to rest on top of Harry’s thigh.

“Every universe. Every time. Even the one where I’m a cat and you’re a duck.”

“Why a duck?” Zayn looked on the edge of laughter, waiting for whatever punch line Harry could come up with.

“How funny would it be to see a duck that’s afraid of the water?” Harry thumped his hands on the steering wheel, laughing at himself.

“That’s rude,” Zayn looked away.

“S’not rude. I didn’t make up the universes.” Zayn looked at him with one eyebrow quirked and Harry caved, “Okay, in the universe where you’re the duck that is scared of the water, I’m a duck too. And I’ll give your scared duck ass rides on my back so the water won’t get you, okay?”

“That’s much better,” Zayn laughed, leaning over to kiss Harry’s lips before letting him focus on the road.

“Damn, you’d be a difficult duck,” Harry said shaking his head.

“Nah, I’d be a lucky duck,” Zayn said, his voice dead serious

When Harry looked over at him his mouth dropped open, they started laughing at the same time, hands held tight together as the made their way back to the place they belong.

*~

 

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr ](http://daisyharry.tumblr.com)
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> Full prompt: Harry and Zayn are best friends with superpowers. Their town isn't the most supportive of their abilities and endless whispers went around about them, the story constantly changing. There was one thing they could all agree on though: Harry's fast and Zayn's weird. (Avengers: Age of Ultron AU where Zayn is Wanda, Scarlet Witch, and Harry is Pietro, Quicksilver).
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> Thanks for reading :)


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